The name _Roucou_ is from the Carib
_Urucu_. In commerce the dye is also known as Annotto.]
This table, with its alluring figures, that seem to glean gratefully
after the steps of labor, is the negro's manifesto of the French
slave-trade. The surprising totals betray the sudden development of that
iniquity under the stimulus of national ambition. The slave expresses
his misery in the ciphers of luxury. The single article of sugar, which
lent a new nourishment to the daily food of every country, sweetened
the child's pap, the invalid's posset, and the drinks of rich and poor,
yielded its property to medicine, made the nauseous palatable, grew
white and frosted in curious confections, and by simply coming into
use stimulated the trades and inventions of a world, was the slave's
insinuation of the bitterness of his condition. Out of the eaten came
forth meat, and out of the bitter sweetness.
In 1701, Western San Domingo had 19,000 negroes: in 1777, a moderate
estimate gives 300,000, not including 50,000 children under fourteen
years of age,--and in the other French colonial possessions 500,000. In
the year 1785, sixty-five slavers brought to San Domingo 21,662 negroes,
who were sold for 43,236,216 livres; and 32,990 were landed in the
smaller French islands. In 1786, the value of the negroes imported was
estimated at 65,891,395 livres, and the average price of a negro at that
time was 1997 livres.
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