898 
STATISTICS 01’ SLAVERY. 
and religious sentiment, introduce into domestic slavery. 
“The negroes,” says Benzoni, “multiply so much at St. 
Domingo, that in 151-5, when I was in Terra Erma [on the 
coast of Caracas], I saw many Spaniards who had no doubt 
that the island would shortly be the property of the blacks.”* 
It was reserved for our age to see this prediction accom- 
plished ; and a European colony of America transform itselt 
into an African state. 
The sixty thousand slaves which the seven united pro- 
vinces of Venezuela are computed to contain, are so un- 
equally divided, that in the province of Caracas alone there 
are nearly forty thousand, one-iifth of whom are mulattoes ; 
in Maracaybo, there are ten or twelve thousand ; but in 
Cumana and Barcelona, scarcely six thousand. To judge 
of the influence which the slaves and men of colour exer- 
cise on the public tranquility, it is not enough to know 
their number, we must consider their accumulation at 
certain points, and their manner of life, as cultivators or 
inhabitants of towns. In the province of Venezuela, the 
slaves are assembled together on a space of no great 
extent, between the coast, and a line which passes (at twelve 
leagues from the coast) through Panaquire, Tare, Sabana 
de Ocumare, Villa de Cura, and Nirgua. The llanes or 
vast plains of Calaboso, San Carlos, Q-uanare, and Barque- 
cimeto, contain only four or five thousand slaves, who are 
scattered among the farms, and employed in the care of 
cattle. The number of free men is very considerable ; the 
Spanish laws and customs being favourable to affranchise- 
ment. A master cannot refuse liberty to a slave who offers 
him the sum of three hundred piastres, wen though the 
slave may have cost double that price, on account of his 
industry, or a particular aptitude for the trade he practises. 
Instances of persons who voluntarily bestow liberty on a 
certain number of their slaves, are more common in the 
• “ Vi sono mold Spagnuoli che tengono per cosacerta, die quest’ isola 
(San Dominion) in breve tempo sara posseduta da questi Mori di Guinea.” 
(Benzoni, Istoria del Mondo Nuovo, ediz. 2da, 1672, p. 65.) The 
author, who is not very scrupulous in the adoption of statistical facts, 
believes that in his time there were at St. Domingo seven thousand 
fugitive negroes (Mori cimaroni), with whom Don Luis Ccl'unbus made a 
treaty of peace and friendship. 
