Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/382

 I am, however, by no means satisfied that the estimates of both Poinsett and Burkhardt are not too high; yet, assuming the statements of 1842 and of 1793 to be nearly accurate, we find in 49 years an increase of only 1,774,111 in the entire population. Again, if we assume the population to have been 6,000,000 in 1824, (the year, in fact, of the establishment of the Republic,) we find that in the course of 18 years of liberty and independence, the increase has not been greater than 1,044,140.

In the United States of America, with only 650,000 more of square miles of territory now, and not so large a space at the achievement of our independence, the increase of our population during the first twenty years of freedom, cannot have been less than two millions and a half, while, in the course of the last thirty years, it has averaged an increase of rather more than 33 per cent, every ten.

The several castes and classes of Mexicans may be rated in the following manner:

It appears, therefore, that the Indian and Negroes amount to 4,006,000, and the whites, and all other castes, to 3,009,509. A very respectable and aged resident of Mexico, who is remarkable for the extent and accuracy of his observations, estimates that of the former (or Negroes and Indians,) but two per cent, can read and write, while of the latter, at a liberal estimate, but about 20 per cent.

If we take this computation to be correct, as I believe from my own observation it is,—and using the estimate of the decree of 1842 for the basis of the population, we shall have:

This would appear to be a startling fact in a Republic the basis of whose safety is the capacity of the people for an intellectual self-government. Let us, however, carry this calculation a little further. If we suppose that out of the 1,000,000 of Whites 500,000, or the half only, are males, and of that half million, but 20 per cent., or but 100,000 can read and write; we will no longer be surprised that a population of more than seven millions has been hitherto controlled by a handful of men, or that, with the small means of improvement afforded to the few who can read, the