The census of 1817 was without doubt the most perfect which had up to that time been taken; but, for the reasons before given, it was far from being an accurate enumeration. To these figures, before transmitting them to Spain, the Provincial Deputation added 32,641 transients of various kinds, and 25,967 negroes imported during the year in which the census was taken. These additions made the report read as follows:
Whites 290,021 Free Colored 115,691 Slaves 225,259 ------- Total 630,971
It would seem that these various censuses and the estimate of 1811 show great discrepancies, but on this point we have the sage observations of no less an authority than Baron Humboldt to guide us. He says:
"We shall not be surprised at the partial contradiction found in the tables of population when we taken into consideration all the difficulties that have been encountered in the centres of European civilization, England and France, whenever the great operation of a general census is attempted. No one is ignorant, for example, of the fact that the population of Paris, in 1820, was 714,000, and from the number of deaths, and supposed proportion of births to the total population, it is believed to have been 520,000, at the beginning of the eighteenth century; yet during the administration of M. Necker, the ascertained population was one-sixth less than this number."
The process of census taking even in this twentieth century is an enormous undertaking and not free from error. How much more difficult must it have been in a country where it was to the interest of the intelligent to suppress the facts, where a large proportion of the population was still in slavery, and where means of communication from place to place were far from adequate!
Baron Humboldt after very careful calculation estimated the population at the close of 1825 to be as follows:
Whites 325,000 Free colored 130,000 Slaves 260,000 ------- Total 715,000
This was nearly equal to that of the British Antilles, and about twice that of Jamaica.
During the first half of the nineteenth century three additional censuses were taken:
_Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 89,526 75,532 21,235 24,829 125,388 72,027 408,537 Central 53,447 44,776 13,296 10,950 28,398 13,630 164,497 Eastern 25,680 22,090 17,431 18,753 29,504 17,995 131,353 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- Total 168,653 142,398 51,962 54,532 183,290 103,652 704,487