CHAPTER X 



THE LAST PHASE OF THE SLAVE TRADE 



ALTHOUGH in 1808 the United States Congress had 

 declared the over-sea slave trade to be illegal, had 

 stopped, in fact, the importation of slaves from Africa 

 into the United States, slavery and the need for slaves grew 

 to be more important than ever in the development of the 

 Cuban plantations, as well as in Puerto Rico and Brazil. Owing 

 to the disproportionately large number of males imported as 

 slaves and the high mortality which prevailed amongst these 

 Africans, the slaves in tropical America did not increase in 

 numbers, the births not even meeting the deficit caused by the 

 deaths. Moreover, as the prices of produce rose and the de- 

 mand for labour became more and more acute, the slaves were 

 greatly overworked, and their proportionate value rose higher 

 and higher. These reasons concentrated in Cuba more especially 

 the vigorous slave trade of the first half of the nineteenth 

 century, and it was from Cuba chiefly that fast sailing vessels 

 started for the West Coast of Africa.^ In the first decades of 

 the nineteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese slavers, with 

 whom were associated recreant English, French, and Italians, 



^ The privateering permitted under the British and other flags during the 

 Napoleonic wars naturally degenerated often into sheer piracy. After the peace 

 of 1815 many of the fast sailing vessels built for the privateering business were 

 bought up by the slavers of England, the United States, Spain, and Portugal, and 

 put into the business of slave-running. The French also took part in this trade. 

 VOL. I 161 II 



