Spanish America, Vol. 2 (of 2)

To which may be added 50,000 more for Cuba, as according to the latest enquiries that island possesses a population of 600,000 souls; thus there will be a total known population of 14,336,000, and allowing for the inhabitants of the Floridas, and the unnumbered Indians of the kingdom of La Plata, the actual number of persons existing under the government of Spain in the Americas, will not fall short of fifteen millions, while the Portuguese subjects in Brazil amount only to 3,300,000, of whom one million and a half are negroes, one million are Indians and the rest whites.

Of the above total of 14,336,000 souls, there are 3,000,000 whites born in the country, 200,000 Europeans, and the remaining 11,136,000 are Indians, negroes and mixed races, or castes, of which the Indians bear by far the greater proportion, the negroes in Caraccas amounting to 54,000, in Cuba to 212,000; the other states having comparatively very few slaves.

The spaces which this mass of people occupy, in the different governments, have been thus calculated:

Making an extent of country equal to 468,730 square leagues; whilst Great Britain, which has a population of 12,596,800 souls, occupies a space equal only to 87,502 square miles.

Making a total of 8,149,800l. sterling; to which may be added more than another million for the contraband trade.

The Commerce of these countries annually averages in—

And the annual Revenue is equal to nearly eight millions of pounds sterling.