[26]
But the Portuguese jealously watched their privilege to export men
from Africa, so that only about forty thousand negroes were brought
yearly by lawful and contraband channels to the different
islands. Cuba obtained most of these. The greater part of the
Portuguese trade took the direction of Brazil, for the sugar-cane had
been carried from Madeira to Rio Janeiro in 1531. Formidable rivalry
in selfishness was thus sown in every direction by the early splendor
of San Domingo. When the Genoese merchants bought the original
privilege to transport four thousand, they held the price of negroes
at two hundred ducats. Their monopoly ceased in 1539, when a great
market for slaves was opened at Lisbon; Spain could buy them there at
a price varying from ten to fifty ducats a head, but their price
delivered in good condition at San Domingo, including the inevitable
percentage of loss, made them almost as expensive as before.
The capital was shattered by an earthquake in 1684. The people melted
away, and fine houses, which were deserted by their owners, remained
tenantless, and went to ruin. Valverde,[27] a Creole of the island, is
the chronicler of its condition in the middle of the eighteenth
century.
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