The passage was a very prosperous one: only 35 negroes spoiled, or 5 per cent, of the whole number. The remaining 665 were sold in San Domingo at an average price of 2,000 livres, making 1,330,000 " Deduct commissions of ships' officers and correspondents in West Indies, at 11-1/2 per cent 152,950 " --------- 1,177,050 " Deduct expenses in West Indies, 17,050 " --------- 1,160,000 " Deduct exchange, freight, and insurance upon return passage of the vessels, 20 per cent., 232,000 " --------- 928,000 " Deduct crews' wages for 10 months, reckoning the length of the voyage at 13 months, 55,000 " --------- 873,000 " Add value of returned vessels, 90,000 " --------- 963,000 " Deduct original cost of the whole, 480,725 " --------- The profit remains, 100 per cent., 482,275 "
Two hundred and seventy-four slavers entered the ports of San Domingo, from 1767 to 1774, bringing 79,000 negroes. One-third of these perished from various causes, including the cold of the mountains and the unhealthiness of the coffee-plantations, so that only 52,667 remained. These could not naturally increase, for the mortality was nearly double the number of births, and the negroes had few children during the first years after their arrival. Only one birth was reckoned to thirty slaves. There was always a great preponderance of males, because they could bear the miseries of the passage better than the women, and were worth more upon landing. Include also the effects of forced labor, which reduced the average duration of a slave's life to fifteen years, and carried off yearly one-fifteenth of the whole number, and the reason for the slaver's profits and for his unscrupulous activity become clear.
Out of the sugar, thus clarified with blood, the glittering frosted-work of colonial splendor rose. A few great planters debauched the housekeeping of the whole island. Beneath were debts, distrust, shiftlessness, the rapacity of imported officials, the discontent of resident planters with the customs of the mother-country, the indifference of absentees, the cruel rage for making the most and the best sugar in the world, regardless of the costly lives which the mills caught and crushed out with the canes. Truly, it was sweet as honey in the mouth, and suddenly became bitter as wormwood in the belly.