The annual increase of population in Puerto Rico, according to the
calculations of Colonel Flinter, was:
From 1778-1802 ... 24 years ... 5-12 per cent per annum.
" 1802-1812 ... 10 " ... 1-15 " "
1812-1820 ... 8 " ... 3-14 " "
" 1820-1830 ... 10 " ... 4 " "
" 1830-1846 ... 16 " ... 3-15 " "
" 1846-1860 ... 14 " ... 3.72 " "
or an average annual increase of a little less than 4 per cent in a
period of eighty-two years.
From 1860 to 1864 the increase was small, but from that year to the
end of Spanish domination the percentage of increase was larger than
in any of the preceding periods.
The treaty of Paris brought 894,302 souls under the protection of the
American flag. They consisted of 570,187 whites, 239,808 of mixed
race, and 75,824 negroes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 68: Flinter.]
CHAPTER XXXIII
AGRICULTURE IN PUERTO RICO
After the cessation of the gold produce, when the colonists were
forced by necessity to dedicate themselves to agriculture, they met
with many adverse conditions:
The incursions of the Caribs, the hurricanes of 1530 and 1537, the
emigration to Peru and Mexico, the internal dissensions, and last, but
not least, the heavy taxes. The colonists had found the soil of Puerto
Rico admirably adapted to sugar-cane, which they brought from Santo
Domingo, where Columbus had introduced it on his second voyage, and
the nascent sugar industry was beginning to prosper and expand when a
royal decree imposing a heavy tax on sugar came to strangle it in its
birth.
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