The provinces of Caracas, Maracaybo, Cumana and Barcelona, that is,
the maritime provinces of the north, are the most populous of the old
Capitania-General of Caracas; but, in comparing this relative
population with that of New Spain, where the two intendencias of
Mexico and Puebla alone contain, on an extent scarcely equal to the
superficies of the province of Caracas, a greater population than that
of the whole republic of Columbia, we see that some Mexican
intendencias which, with respect to the concentration of their
culture, occupy but the seventh or eighth rank (Zacatecas and
Guadalajara), contain more inhabitants to the square league than the
province of Caracas. The average of the relative population of Cumana,
Barcelona, Caracas and Maracaybo, is fifty-six; and, as 6200 square
leagues, that is, one half of the extent of these four provinces are
almost desert Llanos, we find, in reckoning the superficies and the
scanty population of the plains, 102 inhabitants to the square league.
An analogous modification gives the province of Caracas alone a
relative population of 208, that is, only one-seventh less than that
of the Atlantic States of North America.
As in political economy numerical statements become instructive only
by a comparison with analogous facts I have carefully examined what,
in the present state of the two continents, might be considered as a
small relative population in Europe, and a very great relative
population in America. I have, however, chosen examples only from
among the provinces which have a continued surface of more than 600
square leagues in order to exclude the accidental accumulations of
population which occur around great cities; for instance, on the coast
of Brazil, in the valley of Mexico, on the table-lands of Santa Fe de
Bogota and Cuzco; or finally, in the smaller West India Islands
(Barbadoes, Martinique and St. Thomas) of which the relative
population is from 3000 to 4700 inhabitants to the square league, and
consequently equal to the most fertile parts of Holland, France and
Lombardy.
MINIMUM OF EUROPE:
INHABITANTS TO THE SQUARE LEAGUE.
The four least populous Governments of European Russia:
Archangel : 10.
Olonez : 42.
Wologda and Astracan : 52.
Finland : 106.
The least populous Province of Spain, that of Cuenca : 311.
The Duchy of Luneburg (on account of the heaths) : 550.
The least populous Department of Continental France : 758.
(Hautes Alps)
Departments of France thinly peopled (the Creuse, : 1300.
the Var and the Aude)
MAXIMUM OF AMERICA.
The central part of the Intendencias of : 1300.
Mexico and Puebla, above
In the United States, Massachusetts, but having
only 522 square leagues of surface : 900.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together : 840.
The whole Intendencia of Puebla : 540.
The whole Intendencia of Mexico : 460.
These two Mexican Intendencias together are nearly a third of the
superficial extent of France, with a suitable population (in 1823
nearly 2,800,000 souls) to prevent the towns of Mexico and Puebla from
having a sensible influence on the relative population.
Northern part of the Province of Caracas : 208.
(without the Llanos)
This table shows that those parts of America which we now consider as
the most populous attain the relative population of the kingdom of
Navarre, of Galicia and the Asturias, which, next to the province of
Guipuscoa, and the kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number of
inhabitants to the square league in all Spain; the maximum of America
is, however, below the relative population of the whole of France
(1778 to the square league), and would, in the latter country, be
considered as a very thin population. If, taking a survey of the whole
surface of America, we direct our attention to the Capitania-General
of Venezuela, we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the
province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without excepting the
Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of Tennessee; and
that this province, without the Llanos, furnishes in its northern
part, or more than 1800 square leagues, the relative population of
South Carolina. Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture,
are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less
than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain.
We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling. Such is the
state to which colonial politics and maladministration have, during
three centuries, reduced a country which, for natural wealth, may vie
with all that is most wonderful on earth. For a region equally desert,
we must look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of
the Allegheny mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, where the
first clearings have only begun within the last eighty years!
The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the basin of the
lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles de Aragua, contained in
1810 nearly 2000 inhabitants to the square league. Supposing a
relative population three times less, and taking off from the whole
surface of the Capitania-General nearly 24,000 square leagues as being
occupied by the Llanos and the forests of Guiana, and, therefore,
presenting great obstacles to agricultural labourers, we should still
obtain a population of six millions for the remaining 9700 square
leagues. Those who, like myself, have lived long within the tropics,
will find no exaggeration in these calculations; for I suppose for the
portion the most easily cultivated a relative population equal to that
in the intendencias of Puebla and Mexico,* full of barren mountains,
and extending towards the coast of the Pacific over regions almost
desert. (* These two Intendencias contain together 5520 square leagues
and a relative population of 508 inhabitants to the square
sea-league.) If the territories of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas,
Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy
good provincial and municipal institutions as confederate states, they
will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six
millions of inhabitants.
