figures than those of Revilla Gigedo. Where this was not possible he added twenty per cent to the returns of 1793 for deficiency, and twenty-five more for the increase during the seventeen years, obtaining a total of 6,122,354.[1] The proportion of races gives the Indians sixty hundredths, the castes twenty-two, and the whites eighteen.[2] Of the last he assumes only fifteen thousand to have been European Spaniards,[3] while raising the proportion of castes with negro blood to nearly half a million. Large as this number appears, it is certain that both economic motives among slave-holders, and natural predilection among aboriginal women favored the diffusion of African blood. Navarro agrees with Humboldt that the slaves could not exceed ten thousand, the pure blacks forming two thirds of this number.[4]
Even without the impulse given by republican principles in modern times for the amalgamation of races, it is evident that the castes strictly speaking must gain in number by encroaching on the other classes, even if these were to show a constant increase—an increase which becomes somewhat fictitious when we consider
- ↑ While several points in the table on page 737 are subject to criticism, the area for instance being in some cases obviously inexact, yet these defects affect the value of the paper so little as not to render changes and attempts at better estimates advisable at this stage of the history. Indeed, the figures tend in this form to better represent the official views at the close of the colonial period. In a later volume the population topic will demand and necessarily receive a more critical treatment.
- ↑ Humboldt raised the whites slightly to one fifth and lowered the Indians to about two fifths, leaving a large remainder to castes. Navarro has the tribute lists to prove the greater correctness of his Indian figures, those of 1807 showing 2,925,179 aborigines.
- ↑ Humboldt estimated their number in 1803 at about 70,000, but this appears to have been based on their proportion at the capital, where they were gathered in large force as the leading holders of offices and commercial positions. Navarro's figure certainly is very low, but he had access to migration statistics, and such a careful student as Alaman corrects his own larger estimates by this. The government gave no special encouragement to emigration.
- ↑ The negroes and negro mixtures rest on rather vague estimates, for those recognized as of this class were included among Indians as tributaries, and those not so recognized merged into other classes. The estimate for white people is also somewhat misleading, since amid the general effort to approach the superior race a number of persons with imperceptible Indian or negro admixture declared themselves white, many indeed obtaining legal permission to do so.
