SLAVE SUGAR IN LOUISIANA. 363 



would impel the latter to more stringent and repressive 

 measures. And human nature is so very extreme in its 

 tendencies, when influenced by avarice, by fear, or by 

 external reproach, that it is impossible to say what addi 

 tional hardships the slave population might, in conse 

 quence, be doomed to undergo. 



The desirableness of retaining all such moral control 

 which may be attainable, will appear when we regard 

 the probabilities now opening up of slavery, in the 

 southern States of North America, attaining an extent 

 and power beyond anything it has yet possessed. 



It has been the growing demand for cotton, and the 

 profit of cultivating it, that, since the invention of the 

 cotton gin in 1793, has most of all strengthened the 

 fetters of the slave, and multiplied his numbers six-fold. 

 The increase of sugar-culture in Louisiana and Texas, 

 by providing another outlet for the profitable employ 

 ment of slave labour in a new and almost boundless 

 field, promises to give a second impulse to the multipli 

 cation of the race on this Continent, similar to that pro 

 duced by the culture of cotton. 



In Louisiana there were of sugar-estates, and of slaves 

 employed in the cultivation of sugar, in 



With horse- With steam- T . , Slaves 



power. power. employed. 



1844-5, . 354 480 762 63,000 



1849-50, . 671 865 1536 126,000 



The cultivation of sugar, therefore, is rapidly increas 

 ing a proof that, with the aid of the duty imposed upon 

 foreign sugar in the States, these countries can now com 

 pete profitably with Cuba and the Brazils. Much more, 

 therefore, when the slave-trade to these latter countries 

 shall come to be abolished, and the expense of cultivation 

 thereby raised, will they be able to strive successfully 

 against them for the supply of the whole United States 

 market. And if we consider that, into this latter market, 

 raw sugar to the value of about 9,000,000 of dollars is 



