433 



diction accomplished ; and a European colony 

 of America transform itself into an African 

 state. 



The sixty thousand * slaves, which the seven 

 united provinces of Venezuela contain, are so 

 unequally divided, that in the province of Ca- 

 raccas alone there are nearly forty thousand, 

 one fifth of which are Mulattoes ; in that of Ma- 

 racaybo, ten or twelve thousand ; in those of 

 Cumana and Barcelona, scarcely six thousand* 



* This estimation differs only one tenth from that, which 

 I published in my work on Mexico, Tom. ii, p. 748 ; which 

 terminates by general considerations respecting all the Spa- 

 nish Colonies. Strongly interested to know with precision 

 the black population of America, I had formed on the spot, 

 in 1800, alter consulting rich proprietors (haciendados ), par- 

 tial lists for the vallies of Caraccas, Caucagua, Guapo, Gua- 

 tire, Aragua, Ocumare, &c. These estimations gave for 

 the province of Venezuela thirty-two thousand five hundred 

 slaves ; for all the Capitania-general of Caraccas, fifty-four 

 thousand, instead of two hundred and eighteen thousand 

 Blacks, which Mr. Depons indicates, supposing (no doubt 

 from an error in the figures) that the Blacks form nearly a 

 third (three tenths) of the whole population. (Voyage d la 

 Terre-Ferme, Tome 1, p. 178 et 241.) The computations 

 which I had collected during my abode at Caraccas, at Cu- 

 mana, and in Spanish Guiana, have been recently submitted 

 to new verifications, by the care of Don Manuel Palacio- 

 Faxardo, who has published a very interesting account of the 

 carbonat of soda, or urao of JLuganilla, and whose three jour- 

 nals of the road from Santa-Fe to Varinas, from Caraccas to 

 the Llanos of Pore, and from Merida to Truxillo, afforded 

 me valuable materials for rectifying the geographical maps. 



VOL. III. 2 F 



