Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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, Yare, Sabana De Ocumare, Villa De Cura, And Nirgua.
The
llanos or vast plains of Calaboso, San Carlos, Guanare, and
Barquecimeto, 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 affranchisement. A master cannot refuse
liberty to a slave who offers him the sum of three hundred
piastres, even 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 province of
Venezuela than in any other place. A short time before we visited
the fertile valleys of Aragua and the lake of Valencia, a lady who
inhabited the great village of Victoria, ordered her children, on
her death-bed, to give liberty to all her slaves, thirty in number.
I feel pleasure in recording facts that do honour to the character
of a people from whom M. Bonpland and myself received so many marks
of kindness.
If we compare the seven united provinces of Venezuela with the
kingdom of Mexico and the island of Cuba, we shall succeed in
finding the approximate number of white Creoles, and even of
Europeans.
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