POPULATION. 



187 



action on the part of the negroes, seems to them im- 

 possible, and every change, or concession made to a 

 population subject to servitude, is deemed to be 

 cowardice. But it is not yet too late, for the hor- 

 rible catastrophe of St. Domingo happened because 

 of the inefficiency of the government. Such are the 

 illusions which prevail with the great mass of the 

 colonists of the Antilles, and form an obstacle to im- 

 provement in the state of the negroes in Georgia 

 and the Oarolinas. The island of Cuba may free 

 herself better than the other islands from the com- 

 mon shipwreck, for she has 455,000 freemen, while 

 the slaves number only 260,000 ; and she may pre- 

 pare gradually for the abolition of slavery, availing 

 herself for this purpose, of humane and prudent 

 measures. Do not let us forget that since Haiti be- 

 came emancipated, there are already in the Antilles 

 more free negroes and mulattoes than slaves. The 

 whites, and more particularly the free blacks, who 

 may easily make common cause with the slaves, 

 increase rapidly in Cuba. 



The slave population of Cuba would have dimin- 

 ished with great rapidity since 1820, had it not been 

 for the fraudulent continuance of the slave-trade with 

 Africa. If this infamous traffic should cease entirely, 

 through the advance of civilization, and the energetic 

 will of the new States of Free America, the servile 



