GENERAL SURVEY. 9 



to tlie western shores of the Atlantic during the course of over three centuries. 

 Some writers speak of ten or fifteen millions ; but in any case the slave trade has 

 cost Africa a far greater number of lives than it is now possible to calculate. 



Nearly all the negroes imported during the early period of the traffic perished, 

 like the Caribs, without leaving any posterity. Despite their ready adaptation to 

 a climate which differed little from their own, most of them, being engaged chiefly 

 in the destructive work of the mines, died out within a few years. 



Thus it happened that the negro race was very slowly established in the New 

 World, being gradually constituted of a thousand different ethnical elements 

 drawn from every part of the African seaboard, and diversely intermingled with 

 the blood of their European masters. Thanks to these endless crossings, the 

 native dialects of the slaves disappeared, and amongst the idioms current in the 

 Antilles only a few words can now be traced to an African source. The slaves 

 rapidly adopted the languages of their Spanish, French, or English owners. But 

 if in this respect, as well as in the usages and outward forms of civilisation, they 

 were brought under European influences, their physical constitution was better 

 suited for the environment of the West Indies, where they have now become the 

 numerically dominant race. Except in Cuba, where the Spaniards form the 

 majority of the population, and perhaps also in Puerto Eico, the blacks and 

 people of colour everywhere form b}^ far the most numerous element. 



This part of the New World, the first discovered by the Spaniards, has become 

 an ethnological dependency of the African Continent, and by a sort of retributive 

 justice, the negro race has even acquired political autonomj^ in the large island 

 of Haiti. Such an event is not without a certain historic importance. The des- 

 pised race, supposed to be doomed to everlasting servitude, has forcibly entered 

 into the number of sovereign peoples. It has not only victoriously resisted the 

 efforts made to again bring it under a foreign yoke, but despite a chronic state 

 of intestine strife and the rivalries of ambitious chiefs, it has for a century main- 

 tained its independent position amongst its powerful and hostile neighbours. 



To the preponderance of the negro race in the Antilles corresponds that of 

 the Indians in Mexico and Central America. The Spaniards who at first played 

 the part of truculent masters and treated the aborigines abominably, are now 

 merged with them under the name of ladinos. So true is this that the mesti- 

 zos, or half-castes of the two races, constitute the chief element of the population 

 throughout the northern Hispano- American republics. According to the official 

 returns the white race is in a majority only in the State of Costa Rica. Thus 

 history has resumed its normal course. For over three centuries the Spaniards 

 had lived as parasites on the Mexican populations, and in accordance with a 

 constant law of nature, this parasitic existence had incapacitated them for vigorous 

 action. Throughout this long period, the peoples of the colonial empire misgoverned 

 by Spain remained without a history. Its annals were mainly reduced to a bald 

 record of the appointment, recall, or death of public functionaries. 



But below a seemingly unruffltd surface, important changes were maturing 

 in the social life of the nation. The heteroereneous racial elements were being 



