Volume Iii Part 9 (1/2)
An error, very general through Europe and one which influences opinion respecting the effects of the abolition of the slave-trade, is that in those West India islands called sugar colonies, the majority of the slaves are supposed to be employed in the production of sugar. The cultivation of the sugar-cane is no doubt a powerful incentive to the activity of the slave trade; but a very simple calculation suffices to prove that the total ma.s.s of slaves contained in the West Indies is nearly three times greater than the number employed in the production of sugar. I showed seven years ago that, if the 200,000 cases of sugar exported from the island of Cuba in 1812 were produced in the great establishments, less than 30,000 slaves would have sufficed for that kind of labour. It ought to be borne in mind for the interests of humanity that the evils of slavery weigh on a much greater number of individuals than agricultural labours require, even admitting, which I am very far from doing, that sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton can be cultivated only by slaves. At the island of Cuba it is generally supposed that one hundred and fifty negroes are required to produce 1000 cases (184,000 kilogrammes) of refined sugar; or, in round numbers, a little more than 1200 kilogrammes, by the labour of each adult slave. The production of 440,000 cases would consequently require only 66,000 slaves. If we add 36,000 to that number for the cultivation of coffee and tobacco in the island of Cuba, we find that about 100,000 of the 260,000 slaves now there would suffice for the three great branches of colonial industry on which the activity of commerce depends.
COFFEE.
The cultivation of coffee takes its date, like the improved construction of cauldrons in the sugar houses, from the arrival of the emigrants of San Domingo, especially after the years 1796 and 1798. A hectare yields 860 kilogrammes, the produce of 3500 plants. The province of the Havannah reckoned:
In 1800 60 cafetales.
In 1817 779 cafetales.
The coffee tree being a shrub that yields a good harvest only in the fourth year, the exportation of coffee from the port of the Havannah was, in 1804, only 50,000 arrobas. It rose:
In 1809 to 320,000 arrobas.
In 1815 to 918,263 arrobas.
In 1815, when the price of coffee was fifteen piastres the quintal, the value of the exportation from the Havannah exceeded the sum of 3,443,000 piastres. In 1823, the exportation from the port of Matanzas was 84,440 arrobas; so that it seems not doubtful that, in years of medium fertility, the total exportation of the island, lawful and contraband, is more than fourteen millions of kilogrammes.
From this calculation it results that the exportation of coffee from the island of Cuba is greater than that from Java, estimated by Mr.
Crawfurd, in 1820, at 190,000 piculs, 11 4/5 millions of kilogrammes.
It likewise exceeds the exportation from Jamaica, which amounted, in 1823, according to the registers of the custom-house, only to 169,734 hundredweight, or 8,622,478 kilogrammes. In the same year Great Britain received, from all the English islands, 194,820 hundredweight; or 9,896,856 kilogrammes; which proves that Jamaica only produced six-sevenths. Guadaloupe sent, in 1810, to the mother country, 1,017,190 kilogrammes; Martinico, 671,336 kilogrammes. At Hayti, where the production of coffee before the French revolution was 37,240,000 kilogrammes, Port-au-Prince exported, in 1824, only 91,544,000 kilogrammes. It appears that the total exportation of coffee from the archipelago of the West Indies, by lawful means only, now amounts to more than thirty-eight millions of kilogrammes; nearly five times the consumption of France, which, from 1820 to 1823, was, on the yearly average, 8,198,000 kilogrammes. The consumption of Great Britain is yet* only 3 1/2 millions of kilogrammes. (* Before the year 1807, when the tax on coffee was reduced, the consumption of Great Britain was not 8000 hundredweight (less than 1/2 million of kilogrammes); in 1809, it rose to 45,071 hundredweight; in 1810, to 49,147 hundredweight; in 1823, to 71,000 hundredweight, in 1824, to 66,000 hundredweight (or 3,552,800 kilogrammes.)
The exportation of 1814 was 60 1/2 millions of kilogrammes, which we may suppose was at that period nearly the consumption of the whole of Europe. Great Britain (taking that denomination in its true sense, as denoting only England and Scotland) now consumes nearly two-thirds less coffee and three times more sugar than France.
The price of sugar at the Havannah is always by the arroba of 25 Spanish pounds (or 11.49 kilogrammes), and the price of coffee by the quintal (or 45.97 kilogrammes). The latter has been known to vary from 4 to 30 piastres; it even fell, in 1808, below 24 reals. The price of 1815 and 1819 was between 13 and 17 piastres the quintal; coffee is now at 12 piastres. It is probable that the cultivation of coffee scarcely employs in the whole island of Cuba 28,000 slaves, who produce, on the yearly average, 305,000 Spanish quintals (14 millions of kilogrammes), or, according to the present value, 3,660,000 piastres; while 66,000 negroes produce 440,000 cases (81 millions of kilogrammes) of sugar, which, at the price of 24 piastres, is worth 10,560,000 piastres. It results from this calculation that a slave now produces the value of 130 piastres of coffee, and 160 piastres of sugar. It is almost useless to observe that these relations vary with the price of the two articles, of which the variations are often opposite and that, in calculations which may throw some light on agriculture in the tropical region, I comprehend in the same point of view interior consumption, exportation lawful and contraband.
TOBACCO.
The tobacco of the island of Cuba is celebrated throughout Europe. The custom of smoking, borrowed from the natives of Hayti, was introduced into Europe about the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. It was generally hoped that the cultivation of tobacco, freed from an oppressive monopoly, would be to the Havannah a very profitable object of commerce. The good intentions displayed by the government in abolis.h.i.+ng, within six years, the Factoria de tabacos, have not been attended by the improvement which was expected in that branch of industry. The cultivators want capital, the farms have become extremely dear, and the predilection for the cultivation of coffee is prejudicial to that of tobacco.
The oldest information we possess respecting the quant.i.ty of tobacco which the island of Cuba has thrown into the magazines of the mother country go back to 1748. According to the Abbe Raynal, a much more exact writer than is generally believed, that quant.i.ty, from 1748 to 1753 (average year) was 75,000 arrobas. From 1789 to 1794 the produce of the island amounted annually to 250,000 arrobas; but from that period to 1803 the increased price of land, the attention given exclusively to the coffee plantations and the sugar factories, little vexations in the exercise of the royal monopoly (estanco), and impediments in the way of export trade, have progressively diminished the produce by more than one-half. The total produce of tobacco in the island is, however, believed to have been, from 1822 to 1825, again from 300,000 to 400,000 arrobas.
In good years, when the harvest rose to 350,000 arrobas of leaves, 128,000 arrobas were prepared for the Peninsula, 80,000 for the Havannah, 9200 for Peru, 6000 for Panama, 3000 for Buenos Ayres, 2240 for Mexico, and 1000 for Caracas and Campeachy. To complete the sum of 315,000,000 (for the harvest loses 10 per cent of its weight in merma y aberias, during the preparation and the transport) we must suppose that 80,000 arrobas were consumed in the interior of the island (en los campos), whither the monopoly and the taxes did not extend. The maintenance of 120 slaves and the expense of the manufacture amounted only to 12,000 piastres annually; the persons employed in the factoria cost 54,100 piastres. The value of 128,000 arrobas, which in good years was sent to Spain, either in cigars or in snuff (rama y polvos), often exceeded 5,000,000 piastres, according to the common price of Spain. It seems surprising to see that the statements of exportation from the Havannah (doc.u.ments published by the Consulado) mark the exportations for 1816, at only 3400 arrobas; for 1823, only 13,900 arrobas of tabaco en rama, and 71,000 pounds of tabaco torcida, estimated together, at the custom-house, at 281,000 piastres; for 1825, only 70,302 pounds of cigars, and 167,100 pounds of tobacco in leaves; but it must be remembered that no branch of contraband is more active than that of cigars. Although the tobacco of the Vuelta de abaxo is the most famous, a considerable exportation takes place in the eastern part of the island. I rather doubt the total exportation of 200,000 boxes of cigars (value 2,000,000 piastres) as stated by several travellers during latter years. If the harvests were thus abundant, why should the island of Cuba receive tobacco from the United States for the consumption of the lower cla.s.s of people?
I shall say nothing of the cotton, the indigo, or the wheat of the island of Cuba. These branches of colonial industry are of comparatively little importance; and the proximity of the United States and Guatimala renders compet.i.tion almost impossible. The state of Salvador, belonging to the Confederation of Central America, now throws 12,000 tercios annually, or 1,800,000 pounds of indigo into trade; an exportation which amounts to more than 2,000,000 piastres.
The cultivation of wheat succeeds (to the great astonishment of travellers who have pa.s.sed through Mexico), near the Quatro Villas, at small heights above the level of the ocean, though in general it is very limited. The flour is fine; but colonial productions are more tempting, and the plains of the United States--that Crimea of the New World--yield harvests too abundant for the commerce of native cereals to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive system of the custom-house, in an island near the mouth of the Mississippi and the Delaware. a.n.a.logous difficulties oppose the cultivation of flax, hemp, and the vine. Possibly the inhabitants of Cuba are themselves ignorant of the fact that, in the first years of the conquest by the Spaniards, wine was made in their island of wild grapes.* (* De muchas parras monteses con ubas se ha cogido vino, aunque algo agrio. [From several grape-bearing vines which grow in the mountains, they extract a kind of wine; but it is very acid.] Herera Dec. 1 page 233. Gabriel de Cabrera found a tradition at Cuba similar to that which the people of Semitic race have of Noah experiencing for the first time the effect of a fermented liquor. He adds that the idea of two races of men, one naked, another clothed, is linked to the American tradition. Has Cabrera, preoccupied by the rites of the Hebrews, imperfectly interpreted the words of the natives, or, as seems more probable, has he added something to the a.n.a.logies of the woman-serpent, the conflict of two brothers, the cataclysm of water, the raft of c.o.xc.o.x, the exploring bird, and many other things that teach us incontestably that there existed a community of antique traditions between the nations of the two worlds? Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America.) This kind of vine, peculiar to America, has given rise to the general error that the true Vitis vinifera is common to the two continents.
The Parras monteses which yields the somewhat sour wine of the island of Cuba, was probably gathered on the Vitis tiliaefolia which Mr.
Willdenouw has described from our herbals. In no part of the northern hemisphere has the vine hitherto been cultivated with the view of producing wine south of the 27 degrees 48 minutes, or the lat.i.tude of the island of Ferro, one of the Canaries, and of 29 degrees 2 minutes, or the lat.i.tude of Bus.h.i.+re in Persia.
WAX.
This is not the produce of native bees (the Melipones of Latreille), but of bees brought from Europe by way of Florida. The trade in wax has only become important since 1772. The exportation of the whole island, which from 1774 to 1779 was only 2700 arrobas (average year), was estimated in 1803, including contraband, at 42,700 arrobas, of which 25,000 were destined for Vera Cruz. In the churches of Mexico there is a great consumption of Cuban wax. The price varies from sixteen to twenty piastres the arroba.
Trinidad and the small port of Baracoa also carry on a considerable trade in wax, furnished by the almost uncultivated regions on the east of the island. In the proximity of the sugar-factories many bees perish of inebriety from the mola.s.ses, of which they are extremely fond. In general the production of wax diminishes in proportion as the cultivation of the land augments. The exportation of wax, according to the present price, amounts to about 500,000 of piastres.
COMMERCE.
It has already been observed that the importance of the commerce of the island of Cuba depends not solely on the riches of its productions, the wants of the population in the articles and merchandize of Europe, but also in great part on the favourable position of the port of the Havannah. This port is situated at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, where the high roads of the commercial nations of the old and the new worlds cross each other. It was remarked by the Abbe Raynal, at a period when agriculture and industry were in their infancy, and scarcely threw into commerce the value of 2,000,000 piastres in sugar and tobacco, that the island of Cuba alone might be worth a kingdom to Spain. There seems to have been something prophetic in those memorable words; and since the parent state has lost Mexico, Peru and so many other colonies declared independent, they demand the serious consideration of statesmen who are called upon to discuss the political interests of the Peninsula.
The island of Cuba, to which for a long time the court of Madrid wisely granted great freedom of trade, exports, lawfully and by contraband, of its own native productions, in sugar, coffee, tobacco, wax and skins, to the value of more than 14,000,000 piastres; which is about one-third less than the value of the precious metals furnished by Mexico at the period of the greatest prosperity of its mines.* (*
In 1805 gold and silver specie was struck at Mexico to the value of 27,165,888 piastres; but, taking an average of ten years of political tranquillity, we find from 1800 to 1810 scarcely 24 1/2 million of piastres.) It may be said that the Havannah and Vera Cruz are to the rest of America what New York is to the United States. The tonnage of 1000 to 1200 merchant s.h.i.+ps which annually enter the port of the Havannah, amounts (excluding the small coasting-vessels), to 150,000 or 170,000 tons.* (* In 1816 the tonnage of the commerce of New York was 299,617 tons; that of Boston, 143,420 tons. The amount of tonnage is not always an exact measure of the wealth of commerce. The countries which export rice, flour, hewn wood and cotton require more capaciousness than the tropical regions of which the productions (cochineal, indigo, sugar and coffee) are of little bulk, although of considerable value.) In time of peace from 120 to 150 s.h.i.+ps of war are frequently seen at anchor at the Havannah. From 1815 to 1819 the productions registered at the custom-house of that port only (sugar, rum, mola.s.ses, coffee, wax and b.u.t.ter) amounted, on the average, to the value of 11,245,000 piastres per annum. In 1823 the exportation registered two-thirds less than their actual price, amounted (deducting 1,179,000 piastres in specie) to more than 12,500,000 piastres. It is probable that the importations of the whole island (lawful and contraband), estimated at the real price of the articles, the merchandize and the slaves, amount at present to 15,000,000 or 16,000,000 piastres, of which scarcely 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 are re-exported. The Havannah purchases from abroad far beyond its own wants, and exchanges its colonial articles for the productions of the manufactures of Europe, to sell a part of them at Vera Cruz, Truxillo, Guayra, and Carthagena.
On comparing, in the commercial tables of the Havannah, the great value of merchandise imported, with the little value of merchandise re-exported, one is surprised at the vast internal consumption of a country containing only 325,000 whites and 130,000 free men of colour.