, 313,306,112 6,770,792 427,529[64]
Hayti 1848, very little. 34,114,717[C] 1,591,454[65]
----------- ---------- ---------
Total 313,306,112 40,885,509 2,018,983
Free Labor Deficit 496,038,341 67,360,474 22,267,143
To understand the bearing which this decrease of production, by free
labor, has upon the interests of the African race, it must be
remembered, that the consumption of cotton and sugar has not diminished,
but increased, vastly; and that for every bale of cotton, or hogshead of
sugar, that the free labor production is diminished, an equal amount of
slave labor cotton and sugar is demanded to supply its place; and, more
than this, for every additional bale or hogshead required by their
increased consumption, an additional one must be furnished by slave
labor, because the world will not dispense with their use. As no
material change has occurred, for several years, in the commercial
condition of the islands, it is not necessary to bring this statement
down to a later date than 1848. The causes operating to encourage the
American planters, in extending their cultivation of cotton and sugar,
can now be understood.
In relation to the moral condition of Hayti, we need say but little. It
is known that a great majority of the children of the island are born
out of wedlock, and that the Christian Sabbath is the principal market
day in the towns. The _American and Foreign Christian Union_, a
missionary paper of New York, after quoting the report of one of the
missionaries in Hayti, who represents his success as encouraging, thus
remarks: "This letter closes with some singular incidents not suitable
for publication, showing the deplorable state of community there, both
morally and socially. There seems to be a mixture of African barbarism
with the sensuous civilization of France. . . . . That dark land needs
the light which begins to dawn thereon."
Thus matters stood when the second edition of this work went to press.
An opportunity is now afforded, of embracing the results of emancipation
to a later date, and of forming a better judgment of the effects of that
policy on the question of freedom in the United States. For, if the
negro, with full liberty, in the West Indies, has proved himself
unreliable in voluntary labor, the experiment of freeing him here will
not be attempted by our slaveholders.
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