Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3 — 14 - Chapter 3.27, Part 2

When considering the influence which the configuration of countries (that is, the elevation and the form of coasts) exercises in every district on the progress of civilization and the destiny of nations, I have pointed out the disadvantages of those vast masses of triangular continents, which, like Africa and the greater part of South America, are destitute of gulfs and inland seas.

It cannot be doubted that the existence of the Mediterranean has been closely connected with the first dawn of human cultivation among the nations of the west, and that the articulated form of the land, the frequency of its contractions and the concatenation of peninsulas favoured the civilization of Greece, Italy, and perhaps of all Europe westward of the meridian of the Propontis.

In the New World the uninterruptedness of the coasts and the monotony of their straight lines are most remarkable in Chili and Peru.

The shore of Columbia is more varied, and its spacious gulfs, such as that of Paria, Cariaco, Maracaybo, and Darien, were, at the time of the first discovery better peopled than the rest and facilitated the interchange of productions.

That shore possesses an incalculable advantage in being washed by the Caribbean Sea, a kind of inland sea with several outlets, and the only one pertaining to the New Continent.

This basin, whose various shores form portions of the United States, of the republic of Columbia, of Mexico and several maritime powers of Europe, gives birth to a peculiar and exclusively American system of trade.

The south-east of Asia with its neighbouring archipelago and, above all, the state of the Mediterranean in the time of the Phoenician and Greek colonies, prove that the nearness of opposite coasts, not having the same productions and not inhabited by nations of different races, exercises a happy influence on commercial industry and intellectual cultivation.

The importance of the inland Caribbean Sea, bounded by Venezuela on the south, will be further augmented by the progressive increase of population on the banks of the Mississippi; for that river, the Rio del Norte and the Magdalena are the only great navigable streams which the Caribbean Sea receives.

The depth of the American rivers, their immense branches, and the use of steam-boats, everywhere facilitated by the proximity of forests, will, to a certain extent, compensate for the obstacles which the uniform line of the coasts and the general configuration of the continent oppose to the progress of industry and civilization.

On comparing the extent of the territory with the absolute population, we obtain the result of the connection of those two elements of public prosperity, a connection that constitutes the relative population of every state in the New World.

We shall find to every square sea league, in Mexico, 90; in the United States, 58; in the republic of Columbia, 30; and in Brazil, 15 inhabitants; while Asiatic Russia furnishes 11; the whole Russian Empire, 87; Sweden with Norway, 90;

European Russia, 320; Spain, 763; and France, 1778. But these estimates of relative population, when applied to countries of immense extent, and of which a great part is entirely uninhabited, merely furnish mathematical abstractions of but little value.

In countries uniformly cultivated--in France, for example--the number of inhabitants to the square league, calculated by separate departments, is in general only a third, more or less, than the relative population of the sum of all the departments.

Even in Spain the deviations from the average number rise, with few exceptions, only from half to double.

In America, on the contrary, it is only in the Atlantic states, from South Carolina to New Hampshire, that the population begins to spread with any uniformity.

In that most civilized portion of the New World, from 130 to 900 inhabitants are reckoned to the square league, while the relative population on all the Atlantic states, considered together, is 240. The extremes (North Carolina and Massachusetts) are only in the relation of 1 to 7, nearly as in France, where the extremes, in the departments of the Hautes Alpes and the Cote-du-Nord are also in the relation of 1 to 6. 7. The variations from the average number, which we generally find restricted to narrow limits in the civilized countries of Europe, exceed all measure in Brazil, in the Spanish colonies and even in the confederation of the United States, in its whole extent.

We find in Mexico in some of the intendencias, for example, La Sonora and Durango, from 9 to 15 inhabitants to the square league, while in others, on the central table-land, there are more than 500. The relative population of the country situated between the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the Atlantic states is scarcely 47; while that of Connecticut, Rhode island, and Massachusetts is more than 800. Westward of the Mississippi as well as in the interior of Spanish Guiana there are not two inhabitants to the square league over much larger extents of territory than Switzerland or Belgium.

The state of these countries is like that of the Russian Empire, where the relative population of some of the Asiatic governments (Irkutsk and Tobolsk) is to that of the best cultivated European districts as 1 to 300. The enormous difference existing, in countries newly cultivated, between the extent of territory and the number of inhabitants, renders these partial estimates necessary.

When we learn that New Spain and the United States, taking their entire extent at 75,000 and 174,000 square sea-leagues, give respectively 90 and 58 souls to each league, we no more obtain a correct idea of that distribution of the population on which the political power of nations depends, than we should of the climate of a country, that is to say, of the distribution of the heat in the different seasons, by the mere knowledge of the mean temperature of the whole year.

If we take from the United States all their possessions west of the Mississippi, their relative population would be 121 instead of 58 to the square league;

consequently much greater than that of New Spain.

Taking from the latter country the Provincias internas (north and north-east of Nueva Galicia) we should find 190 instead of 90 souls to the square league.

The provinces of Caracas, Maracaybo, Cumana and Barcelona, that is, the maritime provinces of the north, are the most populous of the old Capitania-General of Caracas; but, in comparing this relative population with that of New Spain, where the two intendencias of Mexico and Puebla alone contain, on an extent scarcely equal to the superficies of the province of Caracas, a greater population than that of the whole republic of Columbia, we see that some Mexican intendencias which, with respect to the concentration of their culture, occupy but the seventh or eighth rank (Zacatecas and Guadalajara), contain more inhabitants to the square league than the province of Caracas.

The average of the relative population of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas and Maracaybo, is fifty-six; and, as 6200 square leagues, that is, one half of the extent of these four provinces are almost desert Llanos, we find, in reckoning the superficies and the scanty population of the plains, 102 inhabitants to the square league.

An analogous modification gives the province of Caracas alone a relative population of 208, that is, only one-seventh less than that of the Atlantic States of North America.

As in political economy numerical statements become instructive only by a comparison with analogous facts I have carefully examined what, in the present state of the two continents, might be considered as a small relative population in Europe, and a very great relative population in America.

I have, however, chosen examples only from among the provinces which have a continued surface of more than 600 square leagues in order to exclude the accidental accumulations of population which occur around great cities; for instance, on the coast of Brazil, in the valley of Mexico, on the table-lands of Santa Fe de Bogota and Cuzco; or finally, in the smaller West India Islands (Barbadoes, Martinique and St. Thomas) of which the relative population is from 3000 to 4700 inhabitants to the square league, and consequently equal to the most fertile parts of Holland, France and Lombardy.

MINIMUM OF EUROPE:

INHABITANTS TO THE SQUARE LEAGUE.

The four least populous Governments of European Russia: Archangel : 10. Olonez : 42. Wologda and Astracan : 52. Finland : 106. The least populous Province of Spain, that of Cuenca : 311. The Duchy of Luneburg (on account of the heaths) : 550. The least populous Department of Continental France : 758. (Hautes Alps) Departments of France thinly peopled (the Creuse, : 1300. the Var and the Aude) MAXIMUM OF AMERICA.

The central part of the Intendencias of : 1300. Mexico and Puebla, above In the United States, Massachusetts, but having only 522 square leagues of surface : 900. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together : 840. The whole Intendencia of Puebla : 540. The whole Intendencia of Mexico : 460. These two Mexican Intendencias together are nearly a third of the superficial extent of France, with a suitable population (in 1823 nearly 2,800,000 souls) to prevent the towns of Mexico and Puebla from having a sensible influence on the relative population.

Northern part of the Province of Caracas : 208. (without the Llanos) This table shows that those parts of America which we now consider as the most populous attain the relative population of the kingdom of Navarre, of Galicia and the Asturias, which, next to the province of Guipuscoa, and the kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number of inhabitants to the square league in all Spain; the maximum of America is, however, below the relative population of the whole of France (1778 to the square league), and would, in the latter country, be considered as a very thin population.

If, taking a survey of the whole surface of America, we direct our attention to the Capitania-General of Venezuela, we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without excepting the Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of Tennessee; and that this province, without the Llanos, furnishes in its northern part, or more than 1800 square leagues, the relative population of South Carolina.

Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture, are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain.

We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling.

Such is the state to which colonial politics and maladministration have, during three centuries, reduced a country which, for natural wealth, may vie with all that is most wonderful on earth.

For a region equally desert, we must look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of the Allegheny mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, where the first clearings have only begun within the last eighty years!

The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the basin of the lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles de Aragua, contained in 1810 nearly 2000 inhabitants to the square league.

Supposing a relative population three times less, and taking off from the whole surface of the Capitania-General nearly 24,000 square leagues as being occupied by the Llanos and the forests of Guiana, and, therefore, presenting great obstacles to agricultural labourers, we should still obtain a population of six millions for the remaining 9700 square leagues.

Those who, like myself, have lived long within the tropics, will find no exaggeration in these calculations; for I suppose for the portion the most easily cultivated a relative population equal to that in the intendencias of Puebla and Mexico,* full of barren mountains, and extending towards the coast of the Pacific over regions almost desert.

(* These two Intendencias contain together 5520 square leagues and a relative population of 508 inhabitants to the square sea-league.

) If the territories of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas, Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy good provincial and municipal institutions as confederate states, they will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six millions of inhabitants.

Venezuela, the eastern part of the republic of Columbia, would not, even with nine millions, have a more considerable population than Old Spain; and can it be doubted that that part of Venezuela which is most fertile and easy of cultivation, that is, the 10,000 square leagues remaining after deducting the Llanos and the almost impenetrable forests between the Orinoco and the Cassiquiare, could support in the fine climate of the tropics as many inhabitants as 10,000 square leagues of Estramadura, the Castiles, and other provinces of the table-land of Spain?

These predictions are by no means problematical, inasmuch as they are founded on physical analogies and on the productive power of the soil; but before we can indulge the hope that they will be actually accomplished, we must be secure of another element less susceptible of calculation--that national wisdom which subdues hostile passions, destroys the germs of civil discord and gives stability to free and energetic institutions.

When we take a view of the soil of Venezuela and New Grenada we perceive that no other country of Spanish America furnishes commerce with such various and rich productions of the vegetable kingdom.

If we add the harvests of the province of Caracas to those of Guayaquil, we find that the republic of Columbia alone can furnish nearly all the cacao annually demanded by Europe.

The union of Venezuela and New Grenada has also placed in the hands of one people the greater part of the quinquina exported from the New Continent.

The temperate mountains of Merida, Santa Fe, Popayan, Quito and Loxa produce the finest qualities of this febrifugal bark hitherto known.

I might swell the list of these valuable productions by the coffee and indigo of Caracas, so long esteemed in commerce; the sugar, cotton and flour of Bogota; the ipecacuanha of the banks of the Magdelena; the tobacco of Varinas; the Cortex Angosturae of Caroni; the balsam of the plains of Tolu; the skins and dried provisions of the Llanos; the pearls of Panama, Rio Hacha and Marguerita; and finally the gold of Popayan and the platinum which is nowhere found in abundance but at Choco and Barbacoa: but conformably with the plan I have adopted, I shall confine myself to the old Capitania-General of Caracas.

Owing to a peculiar disposition of the soil in Venezuela the three zones of agricultural, pastoral and hunting-life succeed each other from north to south along the coast in the direction of the equator.

Advancing in that direction we may be said to traverse, in respect to space, the different stages through which the human race has passed in the lapse of ages, in its progress towards cultivation and in laying the foundations of civilized society.

The region of the coast is the centre of agricultural industry; the region of the Llanos serves only for the pasturage of the animals which Europe has given to America and which live there in a half-wild state.

Each of those regions includes from seven to eight thousand square leagues; further south, between the delta of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, lies a vast extent of land as large as France, inhabited by hunting nations, covered with thick forests and impassable swamps.

The productions of the vegetable kingdom belong to the zones at each extremity; the intermediary savannahs, into which oxen, horses, and mules were introduced about the year 1548, afford food for some millions of those animals.

At the time when I visited Venezuela the annual exportation from thence to the West India Islands amounted to 30,000 mules, 174,000 ox-hides and 140,000 arrobas (of twenty-five pounds) of tasajo,* or dried meat slightly salted.

(* The back of the animal is cut in slices of moderate thickness.

An ox or cow of the weight of 25 arrobas produces only 4 to 5 arrobas of tasajo or tasso.

In 1792 the port of Barcelona alone exported 98,017 arrobas to the island of Cuba.

The average price is 14 reals and varies from 10 to 18 (the real is worth about 6 1/2 pence English).

M.

Urquinasa estimates the total exportation of Venezuela in 1809 at 200,000 arrobas of tasajo.

) It is not from the advancement of agriculture or the progressive encroachments on the pastoral lands that the hatos (herds and flocks) have diminished so considerably within twenty years; it is rather owing to the disorders of every kind that have prevailed, and the want of security for property.

The impunity conceded to the skin-stealers and the accumulation of marauders in the savannahs preceded that destruction of cattle caused by the ravages of civil war and the supplies required for troops.

A very considerable number of goat-skins is exported to the island of Marguerita, Punta Araya and Corolas;

sheep abound only in Carora and Tocuyo.

The consumption of meat being immense in this country the diminution of animals has a greater influence here than in any other district on the well-being of the inhabitants.

The town of Caracas, of which the population in my time was one-tenth of that of Paris, consumed more than one-half the quantity of beef annually used in the capital of France.

I might add to the productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms of Venezuela the enumeration of the minerals, the working of which is worthy the attention of the government; but having from my youth been engaged in the practical labours of mines I know how vague and uncertain are the judgments formed of the metallic wealth of a country from the mere appearance of the rocks and of the veins in their beds.

The utility of such labours can be determined only by well directed experiments by means of shafts or galleries.

All that has been done in researches of this kind, under the dominion of the mother-country, has left the question wholly undecided and the most exaggerated ideas have been recently spread through Europe concerning the riches of the mines of Caracas.

The common denomination of Columbia given to Venezuela and New Grenada has doubtless contributed to foster those illusions.

It cannot be doubted that the gold-washings of New Grenada furnished, in the last years of public tranquillity, more than 18,000 marks of gold;

that Choco and Barbacoa supply platinum in abundance; the valley of Santa Rosa in the province of Antioquia, the Andes of Quindiu and Gauzum near Cuenca, yield sulphuretted mercury; the table-land of Bogota (near Zipaquira and Canoas), fossil-salt and pit-coal; but even in New Grenada subterranean labours on the silver and gold veins have hitherto been very rare.

I am far, however, from wishing to discourage the miners of those countries: I merely conceive that for the purpose of proving to the old world the political importance of Venezuela, the amazing territorial wealth of which is founded on agriculture and the produce of pastoral life, it is not necessary to describe as realities, or as the acquisitions of industry, what is, as yet, founded solely on hopes and probabilities more or less uncertain.

The republic of Columbia also possesses on its coast, on the island of Marguerita, on the Rio Hacha and in the gulf of Panama pearl fisheries of ancient celebrity.

In the present state of things, however, fishing for these pearls is an object of as little importance as the exportation of the metals of Venezuela.

The existence of metallic veins on several points of the coast cannot be doubted.

Mines of gold and silver were worked at the beginning of the conquest at Buria, near Barquesimeto, in the province of Los Mariches, at Baruta, on the south of Caracas, and at Real de Santa Barbara near the Villa de Cura.

Grains of gold are found in the whole mountainous territory between Rio Yaracuy, the Villa de San Felipe and Nirgua, as well as between Guigue and Los Moros de San Juan.

M.

Bonpland and myself, during our long journey, saw nothing in the gneiss granite of Spanish Guiana to confirm the old faith in the metallic wealth of that district; yet it seems certain from several historical notices that there exist two groups of auriferous alluvial land; one between the sources of the Rio Negro, the Uaupes and the Iquiare; the other between the sources of the Essequibo, the Caroni and the Rupunuri.

Hitherto only one working is found in Venezuela, that of Aroa: it furnished, in 1800, near 1500 quintals of copper of excellent quality.

The green-stone rocks of the transition mountains of Tucutunemo (between Villa de Cura and Parapara) contain veins of malachite and copper pyrites.

The indications of both ochreous and magnetic iron in the coast-chain, the native alum of Chuparipari, the salt of Araya, the kaolin of the Silla, the jade of the Upper Orinoco, the petroleum of Buen-Pastor and the sulphur of the eastern part of New Andalusia equally merit the attention of the government.

It is easy to ascertain the existence of some mineral substances which afford hopes of profitable working but it requires great circumspection to decide whether the mineral be sufficiently abundant and accessible to cover the expense.

* (* In 1800 a day-labourer (peon) employed in working the ground gained in the province of Caracas 15 sous, exclusive of his food.

A man who hewed building timber in the forests on the coast of Paria was paid at Cumana 45 to 50 sous a day, without his food.

A carpenter gained daily from 3 to 6 francs in New Andalusia.

Three cakes of cassava (the bread of the country), 21 inches in diameter, 1 1/2 lines thick, and 2 1/2 pounds weight, cost at Caracas one half-real, or 6 1/2 sous.

A man eats daily not less than 2 sous' worth of cassava, that food being constantly mixed with bananas, dried meat (tasajo) and panelon, or unrefined sugar.

) Even in the eastern part of South America gold and silver are found dispersed in a manner that surprises the European geologist; but that dispersion, together with the divided and entangled state of the veins and the appearance of some metals only in masses, render the working extremely expensive.

The example of Mexico sufficiently proves that the interest attached to the labours of the mines is not prejudicial to agricultural pursuits, and that those two branches of industry may simultaneously promote each other.

The failure of the attempts made under the intendant, Don Jose Avalo, must be attributed solely to the ignorance of the persons employed by the Spanish government who mistook mica and hornblende for metallic substances.

If the government would order the Capitania-General of Caracas to be carefully examined during a series of years by men of science, well versed in geognosy and chemistry, the most satisfactory results might be expected.