To which must be added the people's frugal habits, the easy
morals, the effect of climate, and the fecundity of the women of all
mixed races. These, and the peace which the island enjoyed in the
beginning of the nineteenth century, together with the abolition of
some of the restrictions on commerce and industry, promoted an era of
prosperity the like of which the inhabitants had never before known,
and the natural consequence was increase in numbers.
"In those days," says Colonel Flinter, "if some perfect stranger had
dropped from the clouds as it were, on this island, naked, without any
other auxiliaries than health and strength, he might have married the
next day and maintained a family without suffering more hardships or
privations than fall to the lot of every laborer in the ordinary
process of clearing and cultivating a piece of land."
The earliest information on the subject was given by Alexander
O'Reilly, the royal commissioner to the Antilles in 1765, who
enumerates a list of 24 towns and settlements with a total population
of
_Free_ men, women, and children of all colors....39,846
Slaves of both sexes, including their children ........5,037
Total.................................................44,883
Abbad, in his "general statistics of the island," corresponding to
the end of the year 1776, gives the details of the population in 30
"partidas," or ecclesiastical districts, as follows:
Whites 29,263
Free colored people 33,808
Free blacks 2,803
Other free people ("agregados") 7,835
Slaves 6,537
------
Total 80,246
That is to say, an increase of 7-311 per cent per annum during the
eleven years elapsed since O'Reilly's computation, which was a period
of constant apprehension of attacks by pirates and privateers.
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