Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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These Apprehensions Will Cease Only Where
Governments Shall Second By Laws The Progressive Reforms Which
Refinement Of Manners, Opinion, And Religious Sentiment, Introduce
Into Domestic Slavery.
"The negroes," says Benzoni, "multiply so
much at St. Domingo, that in 1545, when I was in Terra Firma
[On
the coast of Caracas], I saw many Spaniards who had no doubt that
the island would shortly be the property of the blacks."* (* "Vi
sono molti Spagnuoli che tengono per cosa certa, che quest' isola
(San Dominico) in breve tempo sara posseduta da questi Mori di
Guinea." (Benzoni Istoria del Mondo Nuovo ediz. 2da 1672 page 65.)
The author, who is not very scrupulous in the adoption of
statistical facts, believes that in his time there were at St.
Domingo seven thousand fugitive negroes (Mori cimaroni), with whom
Don Luis Columbus made a treaty of peace and friendship.) It was
reserved for our age to see this prediction accomplished; and a
European colony of America transform itself into an African state.
The sixty thousand slaves which the seven united provinces of
Venezuela are computed to contain, are so unequally divided, that
in the province of Caracas alone there are nearly forty thousand,
one-fifth of whom are mulattoes; in Maracaybo, there are ten or
twelve thousand; but in Cumana and Barcelona, scarcely six
thousand. To judge of the influence which the slaves and men of
colour exercise on the public tranquility, it is not enough to know
their number, we must consider their accumulation at certain
points, and their manner of life, as cultivators or inhabitants of
towns.
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