Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/57

 MEXIC O. 27 was one of the members of the Executive Power, and who is now a candidate for the Presidency, has a strong mixture of African blood in his veins, which is not considered as any disparagement. This is no slight indication of the ameliora- tion, which a little time may be expected to produce. Res- cued from political degradation, and awakened to a sense of a political existence, I shall not, I trust, be regarded as a theorist, for supposing that a sensible improvement will take place, and that many of the most valuable members of the community will, hereafter, be found amongst those very classes, who were formerly excluded from any share in the direction of the affairs of their country. I cannot conclude this sketch of the population of Mexico, without remarking upon one great advantage which New Spain enjoys over her neighbours, both to the North and South, in the almost total absence of a pure African popula- tion. The importation of slaves into Mexico was always in- considerable, and their numbers, in 1793, did not exceed six thousand. Of these many have died, many have been manu- mitted, and the rest quitted their masters in 1810, and sought freedom in the ranks of the Independent army ; so that I am, I believe, justified in stating, that there is now hardly a single slave in the central portion of the republic. In Texas, (on the Northern frontier,) a few have been introduced by the North American settlers ; but all farther importations are prohibited by law ; and provision has been made for securing the freedom of the offspring of the slaves now in existence. The number of these must be exceedingly small, (perhaps not exceeding fifty altogether;) for, in the annual solemnity which takes place, in the capital, on the 16th September, in commemoration of the proclamation of the Independence by Hidalgo, at Dolores, a part of which was to consist in giving freedom to a certain number of slaves, which is done by the President himself, the greatest