The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign | Page 6

for which I can find an account,) the number imported
and retained for consumption on the island amounted to no less than
16,228;[8] and yet the total number finally emancipated was but 23,471.
The destruction of life appears here to have been enormous; and that it
continued long after the abolition of the slave trade, is shown by the
following comparison of births and deaths:--
1817.......................... 451 births, 902 deaths. 1818.......................... 657
" 1070 "
The total births from 1817 to 1831, were 10,144 in number, while the
deaths were 12,764--showing a loss of about ten per cent.
The number of slaves emancipated in 1834, in all the British
possessions, was 780,993; and the net loss in the previous five years
had been 38,811, or _almost one per cent. per annum_.
The number emancipated in the West Indies was 660,000; and viewing
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 entrepôt 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