Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 417 of 635 - First - Home
It Is Pretty Well Ascertained
That The English Islands Received In The 106 Years Preceding 1786 More
Than 2,130,000 Negroes, Forcibly Carried From The Coast Of Africa.
At
the period of the French revolution, the slave-trade furnished
(according to Mr. Norris) 74,000 slaves annually, of which the English
colonies absorbed 38,000, and the French 20,000.
It would be easy to
prove that the whole of the West Indian archipelago, which now
comprises scarcely 2,400,000 negroes and mulattoes (free and slaves),
received, from 1670 to 1825, nearly 5,000,000 of Africans. These
revolting calculations respecting the consumption of the human species
do not include the number of unfortunate slaves who have perished in
the passage or have been thrown into the sea as damaged merchandize.*
(* Volume 7 page 151. See also the eloquent speech of the Duke de
Broglie, March 28th, 1822 pages 40, 43 and 96.) By how many thousands
must we have augmented the loss, if the two nations most distinguished
for ardour and intelligence in the development of commerce and
industry, the English and the inhabitants of the United States, had
continued, from 1807, to carry on the trade as freely as some other
nations of Europe? Sad experience has proved how much the treaties of
the 15th July, 1814, and of the 22nd January, 1815, by which Spain and
Portugal reserved to themselves the trade in blacks during a certain
number of years, have been fatal to humanity.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 417 of 635
Words from 113927 to 114176
of 174507
