who have survived the horrors of the middle passage and the cruelties of slavery, we will assume De Souza's figures, without any deduction for Indian blood, making the free negro population of all shades 1,280,000. This, added to the slaves, gives us as the population, free and slave, of African descent in the Empire of Brazil for the year 1860 a total of 4,200,500, leaving less than three millions and a third for whites, Indians, and Indian mixed races. One item still remains, the most vague and uncertain of any-the number of negroes and mulattoes in the free republics of Central and South America. In all of these the aboriginal races and their descendants vastly predominate; in all of them has slavery had more than a comparatively ephemeral existence. But as negroes do not voluntarily emigrate to the Western Hemisphere, all the negroes or mulattoes to be found in these countries must be originally due to the slave-trade, with such trifling additions as the straying off of slaves or of free colored persons from the West Indies or from Brazil may occasionally have made.

In Mexico the number of negroes seems to be accurately ascertained. The various estimates differ but a few hundreds; none under 6,000, and none over 7,000. a Let us assume the latter number as the negro population of Mexico in 1860.

In Central America, as in Mexico, the representatives of the African race are a very insignificant part of the population. Squier, formerly charge d"affaires of the United States to the Republics of Central America, is undoubtedly one of the best, if not the very best, authority on that point. He says: "The population of Central America, in the absence of reliable data, can be calculated only approximately."

The following table probably exhibits very nearly the exact proportions in Central America, so far as they may be deduced from existing data and from personal observation: b

Whites.................................................. 100,000

Indians.................................................1,109,000

Mixed races............................................. 800,000

Negroes................................................. 10,000

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Total...................................................2,019,000

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a Albert M. Gilliam, late U. S. consul to California, in his Travels Over the Table-Lands and Cordilleras of Mexico, 1846 (p.164), says: "The census of the population of Mexico, it is said, cannot be accurately taken. From the various estimates made by those having the best opportunities of knowing, a table was furnished me by a gentleman who, from his long residence in the country, and by some attention paid to the subject, may be relied on as measurably correct." The table is as follows:

Indians................................................4,500,000

Other castes...........................................3,000,000

Negroes................................................ 6,000

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Total..................................................7,506,000

Brantz Mayer, formerly secretary of legation to Mexico, in his work entitled "Mexico: Aztec, Spanish, and Republican," 1853 (Vol.2, p.43), estimates the different classes of the population thus:

Indians................................................4,354,886

Whites.................................................1,110,000

Mestizoes..............................................2,165,345

Negroes................................................ 6,600

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Total..................................................7,636,831

b Squier's Notes on Central America, pp.53,54.

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