may not have its weight, viz., the mixture of races and the law of
hybndity. That the mulattoes have a tendency towards extermination,
is believed by many; hut whether the white and black races
have been mingled in a greater proportion in the British West
Indies than in the United States, I have no means now of deter-
mining.
The actual ratio of mortality in the slave-population of the United
States, I do not think can he arrived at, with certainty, from any
statistics yet published. The census of the United States, published
by the Government, is perfectly reliable in respect to the actual
number of negroes at each decennial period, and the rate of increase
in this population; but, I am satisfied that the ratio' of mortality,
taken from the same volume, -should be received with great caution’
because I have reason to believe that the planters, from negligence’
are greatly wanting in accuracy on this point. The average mortality,
for the whole slave-population, is put down in the census at
one m sixiy. This sounds as though it were below the mark; but,
when we reflect on the rapid increase of this population, it may not
be so. We have positive data for the mortality of the free negroes
m Uorthern States, where the climate, as well as social condition is
unfavorable to this class; and the ratio is from one death in twenty
to one m thirty annually, of the entire number. In Boston the
most northern point, the mortality is highest; and rather less in
Uew York and Philadelphia. I can procure no statistics from
Canada, where the blacks must suffer terribly from that climate.
“ The Hacks imported from Africa, everywhere beyond the limits of the Slave States of
North America, tend to extinction. The Liberian experiment, the most favorable ever
made is no exception to this general tendency. According to the Report of the Colonisation
Society, for thirty-tsro years, ending in 1852, the number of colored persons sent to
Liberia amounted to 7592—of which number only 6000 or 7000 remained. The slave-holding
States sent out as immigrants 6 792-the most of whom were emancipated slaves: the non-
slave-holding States sent out 457 persons.
„ “ Tte„b’,aCk raC®,is doomed t0 extinction in the West Indies, as well as in the Northern
States of this republic if the past be a true index of the future, unless the deterioration
and waste of life shall be continually supplied by importations from Africa, or by fugitive
and manumitted slaves from Southern States.
“ M. Humboldt (Personal narrative) has, with his usual accuracy, compiled, from official
sources, the vital statistics of the West India slaves, to near the close of the first quarter
the present century (one decennium before the abolition act of Parliament): He esti- Totlri 9BO nnn SfifS “ * 1’09°’000; free negr° es- “ "g 111 at 870,000;
the t o t a l . , MACOBBOon, in his huge volumes on the progress of America, gives
Irec d n l oSgT 7 a* 1 ’30° ’000 “ the ^ 4 7 -sh preceding quarter of a century, of 660,000. ow in g a decline, in the
rraapuidi^itvyH, hbnuttB rforD rthteS TfraS uSdut *le n‘tt hcoen St'ianTueaSt ioWn0 'olWf thhea Tsela vdeim-tr:ia,!dseh.e’d, since 1820, with great
“ By another calculation, it appears that, in the whole West-Indian archipelago, the free
colored numbered 1,212,900; the slaves, 1,147,500; total, 2,360,500—showing a decline,
in less than five years, of 400,500, notwithstanding the accession by the slave-trade. * * *
“M. H u m b o l d t says: ‘ The whole archipelago of the West Indies, which now comprises
2,400,000 negroes and mulattoes, free and slaves, received, from 1670 to 1825, nearly
5,000,000 Africans.*
Those extracts are taken from an article by Dr. Bennei Dowler,
editor of the “Yew Orleans Medical Journal” (Sept. 1856), wherein
a great many other interesting facts will be found, from the writings
of Turnbull, Long, Porter, and Tucker, as well as from his own
observations. We commend this article strongly to the attention
of the reader.
We however, fortunately, have some statistics which are perfectly
reliable, at the South; and which will afford important light on the
value of life among the blacks. Wh allude to those of the city of
Charleston, South Carolina.
By the United States’ census of 1850, the entire population of
Charleston, white and colored, was 42,985—of which 20,012 were
white; 19,532 slaves; free colored, 3441; total colored, 22,793.
Some years ago, in several articles in the “ Charleston Medical
Journal,” and the “ISTew Orleans Commercial Review,” I worked up
the vital statistics of Charleston, from 1828 to 1845, in connection
with the subject of life-assurance. The ratio of mortality among
the blacks, for those eighteen years, gave an average of deaths per
annum of 1 in 42; and that ratio of mortality was much increased
by a severe epidemic of cholera, in 1836, which bore almost exclusively
on the colored population.
We mow propose to commence where we left off; and to give the
statistics published by the city authorities, which have been kept
with great fidelity, as we have good reason to know. These tables,
for ten years, extend from 1846 to 1855, both inclusive; and the
census of population being taken only in the year 1850, we must
make this the basis of calculation. As this year is about the middle
one of the ten above referred to, the population of this year may be
assumed as the average of the whole; and if the whole number
of colored population, of 1850, be divided by the average number
of the deaths from 1846 to 1855, it will give the average mortality
for the ten years, and the result must approximate very nearly to the
truth.
N IWelVew York Herald (Jan. 20, 1857) republishes, 1 from the London News (Dee. 80), a
“Curious History of the Liberian Republic,” confirmatory of the ethnological opinions
expressed by us in Types of Mankind (pp. 403-4, 455-6), concerning the absolute unfitness
o negro-populations for self-government. The News pledges itself, moreover, to bring out
e Liberian document, containing “ a painful disclosure of a state of vice and misery (at
onrovia), which it might make the kind-hearted old Madison turn in his grave to heve
countenanced or helped to create.”— G. R. G.]