The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

"We shall not be surprised at the partial contradiction found in the tables of population when we taken into consideration all the difficulties that have been encountered in the centres of European civilization, England and France, whenever the great operation of a general census is attempted. No one is ignorant, for example, of the fact that the population of Paris, in 1820, was 714,000, and from the number of deaths, and supposed proportion of births to the total population, it is believed to have been 520,000, at the beginning of the eighteenth century; yet during the administration of M. Necker, the ascertained population was one-sixth less than this number."

The process of census taking even in this twentieth century is an enormous undertaking and not free from error. How much more difficult must it have been in a country where it was to the interest of the intelligent to suppress the facts, where a large proportion of the population was still in slavery, and where means of communication from place to place were far from adequate!

Baron Humboldt after very careful calculation estimated the population at the close of 1825 to be as follows:

Whites	325,000
Free colored	130,000
Slaves	260,000
Total	715,000

This was nearly equal to that of the British Antilles, and about twice that of Jamaica.

During the first half of the nineteenth century three additional censuses were taken:

Census of 1827
	Whites		Free Colored		Slaves		Total
Department	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Western	89,526	75,532	21,235	24,829	125,388	72,027	408,537
Central	53,447	44,776	13,296	10,950	28,398	13,630	164,497
Eastern	25,680	22,090	17,431	18,753	29,504	17,995	131,353
Total	168,653	142,398	51,962	54,532	183,290	103,652	704,487
Census of 1841
	Whites		Free Colored		Slaves		Total
Department	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Western	135,079	108,944	32,726	33,737	207,954	113,320	631,760
Central	60,035	53,838	15,525	16,054	34,939	15,217	195,608
Eastern	32,030	28,365	27,452	27,344	38,357	25,708	180,256
Total	227,144	191,147	75,703	77,135	281,250	155,245	1,007,624
Census for 1846
	Whites		Free Colored		Slaves		Total
Department	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Western	133,968	110,141	28,964	32,730	140,131	87,682	533,617
Central	62,262	52,692	17,041	17,074	32,425	14,560	196,954
Eastern	34,753	31,951	26,646	26,771	28,455	20,506	169,082
Total	230,983	194,784	72,651	76,575	201,011	122,748	898,752

J. S. Thrasher, translator of Baron Humboldt's admirable work on Cuba, and himself an authority of note, offers the following interesting and suggestive discussion of the census of 1846:

"The slightest examination leads to the belief that there is some error in the figures of the census of 1846; and we are inclined to doubt its results, for the following reasons:

"1st—During the period between 1841 and 1846, no great cause, as epidemic, or emigration on a large scale, existed to check the hitherto steady increase of the slave population, and cause a decrease of 112,736 in its numbers, being nearly twenty six per cent. of the returns of 1841; which apparent decrease and the annihilation of former rate of increase (3.7 per cent. yearly), amount together to a loss of 47 per cent., in six years.