At That Time, Nearly Three-Fifths Of The People Of Colour Resided In The Jurisdiction Of The Havannah, From Cape Saint Antonio To Alvarez.

In this part it appears that the towns contained as many mulattos and free negroes as slaves, but that the coloured population of the towns was to that of the fields as two to three.

In the eastern part of the island, on the contrary, from Alvarez to Santiago de Cuba and Cape Maysi, the men of colour inhabiting the towns nearly equalled in number those scattered in the farms. From 1811 till the end of 1825, the island of Cuba has received along the whole extent of its coast, by lawful and unlawful means, 185,000 African blacks, of whom the custom-house of the Havannah, only, registered from 1811 to 1820, about 116,000. This newly introduced mass has no doubt been spread more in the country than in the towns; it must have changed the relations which persons well informed of the localities had established in 1811, between the eastern and western parts of the island, between the towns and the fields. The negro slaves have much augmented in the eastern plantations; but the fact that, notwithstanding the importation of 185,000 bozal negroes, the mass of men of colour, free and slaves, has not augmented, from 1811 to 1825, more than 64,000, or one-fifth, shows that the changes in the relation of partial distribution are restrained within narrower limits than one would at first be inclined to admit.

The proportions of the castes with respect to each other will remain a political problem of high importance till such time as a wise legislation shall have succeeded in calming inveterate animosities and in granting equality of rights to the oppressed classes. In 1811, the number of whites in the island of Cuba exceeded that of the slaves by 62,000, whilst it nearly equalled the number of the people of colour, both free and slaves. The whites, who in the French and English islands formed at the same period nine-hundredths of the total population, amounted in the island of Cuba to forty-five hundredths. The free men of colour amounted to nineteen hundredths, that is, double the number of those in Jamaica and Martinique. The numbers given in the enumeration of 1817, modified by the Deputacion Provincial, being only 115,700 freedmen and 225,300 slaves, the comparison proves, first, that the freedmen have been estimated with little precision either in 1811 or in 1817; and, secondly, that the mortality of the negroes is so great, that notwithstanding the introduction of more than 67,700 African negroes registered at the custom-house, there were only 13,300 more slaves in 1817 than in 1811.

In 1817 a new enumeration was substituted for the approximative estimates attempted in 1811. From the census of 1817 it appears that the total population of the island of Cuba amounted to 572,363. The number of whites was 257,380; of free men of colour, 115,691, and of slaves 199,292.

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