920,000
were whites, 1,960,000 negroes, and 1,120,000 mixed races and native
Indians. Here the proportion of the coloured races to the white is
about three to one. Later estimates give an entire population of
5,000,000; and the proportion of the coloured race to the whites stands
as four to one. It was supposed at the time when the law was passed to
render illegal the introduction of new slaves, that the proportional
number would speedily decline. Had this law been strictly observed,
such would, no doubt, have been the case, as it is well known that the
number of births falls far short of the deaths among the slave
population in Brazil. This does not arise from their ill usage, as some
writers have supÂposed, but from the well-known fact that a greater
proportion of males than of females has at all times been introduced to
the country. On some estates in the interior the proportion of females
to males is often as low as one to ten. In the Diamond District, in
particular, females are very scarce. The law, however, has not been
attended to, and the consequence of incessant inÂtroduction is, that
the number of slaves in the country has not declined. During the five
years which I spent in Brazil, I have good reason for believing that
the supply was always nearly equal to the demand, even in the most
distant parts of the empire.
Notwithstanding
the vigilance of the cruisers both on the coast of Brazil and that of
Africa, it was well known to every one in Rio, that cargoes of slaves
were regularly landed even within a few miles of the city; and during
several voyages which I have made in canoes and other small craft along
the shores of the northern provinces, I have repeatedly seen cargoes of
from one to three hundred slaves landed, and have heard of others.
There are many favourite landing-places between Bahia and Pemambuco,
particularly near the mouth of the Rio San Francisco. / Again and
again, while travelling in the interior, I have seen troops of new
slaves of both sexes, who could not speak a single word of Portuguese,
varying from twenty to one hundred individuals, marched inland for
sale, or already belonging to proprietors of plantations. These bands
are always under the escort of armed men, and those who have already
been bought, are not unfre-
