Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/756

736 figures than those of Revilla Gigedo. Where this was not possible he added twenty per cent to the returns of 1793 for deficiency, and twenty-five more for the increase during the seventeen years, obtaining a total of 6,122,354. The proportion of races gives the Indians sixty hundredths, the castes twenty-two, and the whites eighteen. Of the last he assumes only fifteen thousand to have been European Spaniards, while raising the proportion of castes with negro blood to nearly half a million. Large as this number appears, it is certain that both economic motives among slave-holders, and natural predilection among aboriginal women favored the diffusion of African blood. Navarro agrees with Humboldt that the slaves could not exceed ten thousand, the pure blacks forming two thirds of this number.

Even without the impulse given by republican principles in modern times for the amalgamation of races, it is evident that the castes strictly speaking must gain in number by encroaching on the other classes, even if these were to show a constant increase—an increase which becomes somewhat fictitious when we consider