The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign | Page 6

the facts that have been placed before the reader, we can scarcely err much in assuming that the number imported and retained for consumption in those colonies had amounted to 1,700,000. This would give about two and a half imported for one that was emancipated; and there is some reason to think that it might be placed as high as three for one, which would give a total import of almost two millions.
While thus exhibiting the terrific waste of life in the British colonies, it is not intended either, to assert or to deny any voluntary severity on the part of the landholders. They were, themselves, as will hereafter be shown, to a great extent, the slaves of circumstances over which they had no control; and it cannot be doubted that much, very much, of the responsibility, must rest on other shoulders.

CHAPTER III.
OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
In the North American provinces, now the United States, negro slavery existed from a very early period, but on a very limited scale, as the demand for slaves was mainly supplied from England. The exports of the colonies were bulky, and the whites could be imported as return cargo; whereas the blacks would have required a voyage to the coast of Africa, with which little trade was maintained. The export from England ceased after the revolution of 1688, and thenceforward negro slaves were somewhat more freely imported; yet the trade appears to have been so small as scarcely to have attracted notice. The only information on the subject furnished by Macpherson in his Annals of Commerce is that, in the eight months ending July 12, 1753, the negroes imported into Charleston, S. C., were 511 in number; and that in the year 1765-66, the value of negroes imported from Africa into Georgia was ��14,820--and this, if they be valued at only ��10 each, would give only 1482. From 1783 to 1787, the number exported from all the West India Islands to this country was 1392 [9] --being an average of less than 300 per annum; and there is little reason for believing that this number was increased by any import direct from Africa. The British West Indies were then the entrep?t of the trade,[10] and thence they were supplied to the other islands and the settlements on the Main; and had the demand for this country been considerable, it cannot be doubted that a larger portion of the thousands then annually exported would have been sent in this direction.
Under these circumstances, the only mode of arriving at the history of slavery prior to the first census, in 1790, appears to be to commence at that date and go forward, and afterwards employ the information so obtained in endeavouring to elucidate the operations of the previous period.
The number of negroes, free and enslaved, at that date, was.................................... 757,263 And at the second census, in 1801, it was......... 1,001,436
showing an increase of almost thirty-three per cent. How much of this, however, was due to importation, we have now to inquire. The only two States that then tolerated the import of slaves were South Carolina and Georgia, the joint black population of which, in 1790, was............................. 136,358 whereas, in 1800, it had risen to.................. 205,555 ------- Increase.......... 69,197 =======
In the same period the white population increased 104,762, requiring an immigration from the Northern slave States to the extent of not less than 45,000, even allowing more than thirty per cent. for the natural increase by births. Admitting, now, that for every family of five free persons there came one slave, this, would account for....................... 9,000 And if we take the natural increase of the slave population at only twenty-five per cent., we have further.............................................. 34,000 ------ Making a total from domestic sources of............ 43,000 And leaving, for the import from abroad............ 26,197
Deducting these from the total number added, we obtain, for the natural increase, about 29-1/2 per cent.
Macpherson, treating of this period, says--
"That importation is not necessary for keeping up the stock is proved by the example of North America--a country less congenial to the constitution of the negro than the West Indies--where, notwithstanding the destruction and desertion of the slaves occasioned by the war, the number of negroes, though perhaps not of slaves, has greatly increased--because, since the war they have imported very few, and of late years none at all, except in the Southern States."--Annals, vol. iv. 150.
The number of vessels employed in the slave trade, in 1795, is stated to have been twenty, all of them small; and the number of slaves to be carried was limited to one for each ton of their capacity.
From 1800 to 1810, the increase was 378,374, of which nearly 30,000 were found in Louisiana at her incorporation into the Union, leaving about 350,000 to come from other