Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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On Comparing, In The Commercial Tables Of The Havannah, The Great
Value Of Merchandise Imported, With The Little Value Of
Merchandise
re-exported, one is surprised at the vast internal consumption of a
country containing only 325,000 whites and
130,000 free men of colour.
We find, in estimating the different articles, according to the real
current prices: in cotton and linen (bretanas, platillas, lienzos y
hilo), two and a half to three millions of piastres; in tissues of
cotton (zarazas musulinas), one million of piastres; in silk (rasos y
generos de seda), 400,000 piastres; and in linen and woollen tissues,
220,000 piastres. The wants of the island, in European tissues,
registered as exported to the port of the Havannah only, consequently
exceeded, in these latter years, from four millions to four and a half
millions of piastres. To these importations of the Havannah we must
add: hardware and furniture, more than half a million of piastres;
iron and steel, 380,000 piastres; planks and great timber, 400,000
piastres; Castile soap, 300,000 piastres. With respect to the
importation of provisions and drinks to the Havannah, it appears to me
to be well worthy the attention of those who would know the real state
of those societies which are called sugar or slave colonies. Such is
the composition of those societies established on the most fruitful
soil which nature can furnish for the nourishment of man, such the
direction of agricultural labours and industry in the West Indies,
that, in the best climate of the equinoctial region, the population
would want subsistence but for the freedom and activity of external
commerce.
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