POPULATION OF VENEZUELA. 



125 



Cordilleras, — we must determine the numerical pro- 

 portions between the natives and other inhabitants, 

 and examine to what race, in each part of the col- 

 onies, the greater number of whites belong. The 

 inhabitants of the different districts of the mother- 

 country preserve in some measure their moral pecu- 

 liarities in the New World, although they have under- 

 gone various modifications depending upon the phy- 

 sical constitution of their new abode. 



In Venezuela, whatever is connected with an ad- 

 vanced state of civilization is found along the coast, 

 which has an extent of more than two hundred 

 leagues. It is washed by the Caribbean Sea, a kind 

 of Mediterranean, on the shores of which almost 

 all the European nations have founded colonies, 

 and which communicates at several points with the 

 Atlantic Ocean. Possessing much facility of inter- 

 course with the inhabitants of other parts of Amer- 

 ica, and with those of Europe, the natives have ac- 

 quired a great degree of knowledge and opulence. 



The Indians constitute a large proportion of the 

 agricultural residents in those places only where the 

 conquerors found regular and long-established gov- 

 ernments, as in New Spain and Peru. In the prov- 

 ince of Caraccas, for example, the native popula- 

 tion is inconsiderable, having been in 1800 not more 

 than one-ninth of the whole, while in Mexico it 

 formed nearly one-half. The black slaves do not 

 exceed one-fifteenth of the general mass, whereas 

 in Cuba they were in 1811 as one to three, and in 

 other West India islands still more numerous. In 

 the seven United Provinces of Venezuela there 

 were 60,000 slaves ; while Cuba, which has but one- 

 eighth of the extent, had 212,000. The blacks of 

 these countries are so unequally distributed, that in 

 the district of Caraccas alone there were nearly 

 40,000, of which one-fifth were mulattoes. Hum- 

 boldt estimates the Creoles, or Hispano-Americans, 

 L2 



