But in 1800 our colored population had very nearly trebled its original numbers. Let us suppose (to avoid the chance of overestimate) that in 1803 the slaves and free colored people of Louisiana had only doubled in number as compared to their African descendants. That would give us 15,000 as the number imported into that colony up to the time when it became part of the United States. a

Summing up these various items, we have the total number of slaves imported into the United States up to the date of the abolition of the slave-trade, as follows:

Up to 1790, as before.................................. 325,000

From 1790 to 1800...................................... 27,770

From 1800 to 1810...................................... 47,884

Imported into Louisiana previously to her purchase

from France........................................... 15,000

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Total slaves imported into the United States...........b 415,654

It is to be observed that this is an estimate, not of the slaves that were exported from Africa destined to the United States, but of those that were actually landed there. If the loss on the voyage was, as we have estimated, 20 per cent., c the above 415,654 negroes represent about 52,000 shipped on the African coast, whether directly for this country or coming by way of the West Indies, since 520,000 less 20 per cent. is 416,000.

If the statement of the Duke de Rochefoucault, d that the Rhode Island slavers carried but one negro for each ton burden, may be relied on, the average mortality on board slave ships bound to North America was likely to have been less than 20 per cent. It would, probably, be safe to estimate that out of 500,000 negroes shipped from Africa, the number above estimated to have reached us may have been landed.

Referring now to our estimate of the number of slaves taken from the African coast during the three centuries and a half of the slave-trade, namely, 15,520,000, we may assert, in round numbers, that half a million of these went to our own country, chiefly during its colonial existence, and 15,000,000 to the West Indies and to South and Central America.

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a We ought here, in strictness, to add that proportion of the slave and free colored population of Texas at the time of her admission, which may be supposed to have been due to the African slave-trade. But, in the first place, it was small, a very large proportion of the total (it was about 58,500 in 1850, five years after annexation) being undoubtedly due to natural increase; secondly, we cannot tell how many slaves may have been taken thither from the United States; and, lastly, it is more than offset by the fugitive colored population of Canada and the colonized population of Liberia, neither of which enter into the U. S. census, though both go to increase the total to which the 500,000 slaves shipped in Africa for the United States had actually swelled in 1860.

b An industrious and painstaking author, accustomed to statistics, makes the total one-fifth less than this. Mr. H. C. Carey, in his Slavery, Domestic and Foreign, Philadelphia, 1853, p.18, after furnishing his reasons for each separate estimate, sums up as follows:

Prior to 1714........................................ 30,000

From 1715 to 1750.................................... 90,000

From 1751 to 1760.................................... 35,000

From 1761 to 1770.................................... 74,500

From 1771 to 1790.................................... 34,000

Subsequent to 1790................................... 70,000

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Total number imported up to 1808..................... 333,500

We think Mr. Carey has estimated the rate of natural increase in early days, say from 1714 to 1770, too high, not allowing for the effect, then sensibly felt, of that disproportion between the sexes incident to the slave-trade, to which we shall hereafter have occasion to advert.

c See p.71 [307], ante.

d See p.120 [32], ante.

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