Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/42

Rh but in 1791 there were only 260,000 coloured persons in Jamaica. In sixteen years, the loss was more than 47,000 greater than the entire importation. To say it all in a word: in 1702, Jamaica started with 36,000 slaves; up to 1791, she had imported and retained in bondage 473,000 more; making a total of 509,000 souls, and in 1791, she had only 260,000 to show as the result of her traffic in human souls. There was a waste of 249,000 lives!

About 760,000 slaves were imported into Jamaica between 1650 and 1808. If that nimiber seems excessive, diminish it to 700,000, which is certainly below the fact; then add all the children born in the one hundred and eighty-four years which elapsed before the day of emancipation came. Remember that only 311,000 were there to be emancipated in 1834, and it is plain what a dreadful massacre of human lifd had been going on in that garden of the western world,

About 1,700,000 slaves have been imported into the