The Cultivation Of The Sugar-Cane Is No Doubt A Powerful Incentive To The Activity Of The Slave Trade; But

A very simple calculation suffices to prove that the total mass of slaves contained in the West Indies is nearly

Three times greater than the number employed in the production of sugar. I showed seven years ago that, if the 200,000 cases of sugar exported from the island of Cuba in 1812 were produced in the great establishments, less than 30,000 slaves would have sufficed for that kind of labour. It ought to be borne in mind for the interests of humanity that the evils of slavery weigh on a much greater number of individuals than agricultural labours require, even admitting, which I am very far from doing, that sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton can be cultivated only by slaves. At the island of Cuba it is generally supposed that one hundred and fifty negroes are required to produce 1000 cases (184,000 kilogrammes) of refined sugar; or, in round numbers, a little more than 1200 kilogrammes, by the labour of each adult slave. The production of 440,000 cases would consequently require only 66,000 slaves. If we add 36,000 to that number for the cultivation of coffee and tobacco in the island of Cuba, we find that about 100,000 of the 260,000 slaves now there would suffice for the three great branches of colonial industry on which the activity of commerce depends.

COFFEE.

The cultivation of coffee takes its date, like the improved construction of cauldrons in the sugar houses, from the arrival of the emigrants of San Domingo, especially after the years 1796 and 1798. A hectare yields 860 kilogrammes, the produce of 3500 plants. The province of the Havannah reckoned:

In 1800 60 cafetales. In 1817 779 cafetales.

The coffee tree being a shrub that yields a good harvest only in the fourth year, the exportation of coffee from the port of the Havannah was, in 1804, only 50,000 arrobas. It rose:

In 1809 to 320,000 arrobas. In 1815 to 918,263 arrobas.

In 1815, when the price of coffee was fifteen piastres the quintal, the value of the exportation from the Havannah exceeded the sum of 3,443,000 piastres. In 1823, the exportation from the port of Matanzas was 84,440 arrobas; so that it seems not doubtful that, in years of medium fertility, the total exportation of the island, lawful and contraband, is more than fourteen millions of kilogrammes.

From this calculation it results that the exportation of coffee from the island of Cuba is greater than that from Java, estimated by Mr. Crawfurd, in 1820, at 190,000 piculs, 11 4/5 millions of kilogrammes. It likewise exceeds the exportation from Jamaica, which amounted, in 1823, according to the registers of the custom-house, only to 169,734 hundredweight, or 8,622,478 kilogrammes. In the same year Great Britain received, from all the English islands, 194,820 hundredweight; or 9,896,856 kilogrammes; which proves that Jamaica only produced six-sevenths. Guadaloupe sent, in 1810, to the mother country, 1,017,190 kilogrammes; Martinico, 671,336 kilogrammes. At Hayti, where the production of coffee before the French revolution was 37,240,000 kilogrammes, Port-au-Prince exported, in 1824, only 91,544,000 kilogrammes. It appears that the total exportation of coffee from the archipelago of the West Indies, by lawful means only, now amounts to more than thirty-eight millions of kilogrammes; nearly five times the consumption of France, which, from 1820 to 1823, was, on the yearly average, 8,198,000 kilogrammes. The consumption of Great Britain is yet* only 3 1/2 millions of kilogrammes. (* Before the year 1807, when the tax on coffee was reduced, the consumption of Great Britain was not 8000 hundredweight (less than 1/2 million of kilogrammes); in 1809, it rose to 45,071 hundredweight; in 1810, to 49,147 hundredweight; in 1823, to 71,000 hundredweight, in 1824, to 66,000 hundredweight (or 3,552,800 kilogrammes.)

The exportation of 1814 was 60 1/2 millions of kilogrammes, which we may suppose was at that period nearly the consumption of the whole of Europe. Great Britain (taking that denomination in its true sense, as denoting only England and Scotland) now consumes nearly two-thirds less coffee and three times more sugar than France.

The price of sugar at the Havannah is always by the arroba of 25 Spanish pounds (or 11.49 kilogrammes), and the price of coffee by the quintal (or 45.97 kilogrammes). The latter has been known to vary from 4 to 30 piastres; it even fell, in 1808, below 24 reals. The price of 1815 and 1819 was between 13 and 17 piastres the quintal; coffee is now at 12 piastres. It is probable that the cultivation of coffee scarcely employs in the whole island of Cuba 28,000 slaves, who produce, on the yearly average, 305,000 Spanish quintals (14 millions of kilogrammes), or, according to the present value, 3,660,000 piastres; while 66,000 negroes produce 440,000 cases (81 millions of kilogrammes) of sugar, which, at the price of 24 piastres, is worth 10,560,000 piastres. It results from this calculation that a slave now produces the value of 130 piastres of coffee, and 160 piastres of sugar. It is almost useless to observe that these relations vary with the price of the two articles, of which the variations are often opposite and that, in calculations which may throw some light on agriculture in the tropical region, I comprehend in the same point of view interior consumption, exportation lawful and contraband.

TOBACCO.

The tobacco of the island of Cuba is celebrated throughout Europe. The custom of smoking, borrowed from the natives of Hayti, was introduced into Europe about the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. It was generally hoped that the cultivation of tobacco, freed from an oppressive monopoly, would be to the Havannah a very profitable object of commerce.

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