In 1775, the total number of slaves and other
coloured persons on the island, was…………….. 194,614
And if we now deduct from this the number
in 1702, say…………………………………. 36,000
———-
We obtain, as the increase of 73 years………… 158,614
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In that period the importations amounted to……… 497,736
And the exportations to……………………….. 137,114
———-
Leaving, as retained in the island……………. 360,622 [2]
or about two and two-fifths persons for one that then remained alive.
From 1783 to 1787, the number imported was 47,485, and the number exported 14,541;[3] showing an increase in five years of nearly 33,000, or 6,600 per annum; and by a report of the Inspector-General, it was shown that the number retained from 1778 to 1787, averaged 5345 per annum. Taking the thirteen years, 1775-1787, at that rate, we obtain nearly ……….. 70,000
From 1789 to 1791, the excess of import was 32,289,
or 10,763 per annum; and if we take the four years,
1788-1791, at the same rate, we obtain, as the
total number retained in that period…………….. 43,000
———-
113,000
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In 1791, a committee of the House of Assembly made a report on the number of the slaves, by which it was made to be 250,000; and if to this be added the free negroes, amounting to 10,000, we obtain, as the total number, 260,000,—showing an increase, in fifteen years, of 65,386—or nearly 48,000 less than the number that had been imported.
We have now ascertained an import, in 89 years, of 473,000, with an increase of numbers amounting to only 224,000; thus establishing the fact that more than half of the whole import had perished under the treatment to which they had been subjected. Why it had been so may be gathered from the following extract, by which it is shown that the system there and then pursued corresponds nearly with that of Cuba at the present time.
"The advocates of the slave trade insisted that it was impossible to keep up the stock of negroes, without continual importations from Africa. It is, indeed, very evident, that as long as importation is continued, and two-thirds of the slaves imported are men, the succeeding generation, in the most favourable circumstances, cannot be more numerous than if there had been only half as many men; or, in other words, at least half the men may be said, with respect to population, to die without posterity."—Macpherson, vol. iv. 148.
In 1792, a committee of the Jamaica House of Assembly reported that "the abolition of the slave trade" must be followed by the "total ruin and depopulation of the island." "Suppose," said they,
"A planter settling with a gang of 100 African slaves, all bought in the prime of life. Out of this gang he will be able at first to put to work, on an average, from 80 to 90 labourers. The committee will further suppose that they increase in number; yet, in the course of twenty years, this gang will be so far reduced, in point of strength, that he will not be able to work more than 30 to 40. It will therefore require a supply of 50 new negroes to keep up his estate, and that not owing to cruelty, or want of good management on his part; on the contrary, the more humane he is, the greater the number of old people and young he will have on his estate."—Macpherson, iv. 256.