_Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 135,079 108,944 32,726 33,737 207,954 113,320 631,760 Central 60,035 53,838 15,525 16,054 34,939 15,217 195,608 Eastern 32,030 28,365 27,452 27,344 38,357 25,708 180,256 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- --------- Total 227,144 191,147 75,703 77,135 281,250 155,245 1,007,624 _Census for 1846_ _Whites_ _Free Colored_ _Slaves_ _Total_ _Department_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ _Male_ _Female_ Western 133,968 110,141 28,964 32,730 140,131 87,682 533,617 Central 62,262 52,692 17,041 17,074 32,425 14,560 196,954 Eastern 34,753 31,951 26,646 26,771 28,455 20,506 169,082 ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------- ------- Total 230,983 194,784 72,651 76,575 201,011 122,748 898,752 J. S. Thrasher, translator of Baron Humboldt's admirable work on Cuba, and himself an authority of note, offers the following interesting and suggestive discussion of the census of 1846: "The slightest examination leads to the belief that there is some error in the figures of the census of 1846; and we are inclined to doubt its results, for the following reasons: "1st--During the period between 1841 and 1846, no great cause, as epidemic, or emigration on a large scale, existed to check the hitherto steady increase of the slave population, and cause a decrease of 112,736 in its numbers, being nearly twenty six per cent. of the returns of 1841; which apparent decrease and the annihilation of former rate of increase (3.7 per cent. yearly), amount together to a loss of 47 per cent., in six years. "2d.--During this period the material prosperity of the country experienced no decrease, except the loss of part of one crop, consequent upon the hurricane of 1845. "3d.--During the period from 1842 to 1846, the church returns of christenings and interments were as follows: _White_ _Colored_ _Total_ Christenings 87,049 74,302 161,349 Interments 51,456 57,762 109,218 ------ ------ ------- Increase 35,591 16,540 52,131 "4th.--And because ... a capitation tax upon house servants was imposed in 1844, and a very general fear existed that it would be extended to other classes." Incorrect as we have seen these various censuses to be, they do furnish us with very interesting means of analysis. We can see by the foregoing tables that the free population (black and white) was nearly two thirds of the entire population of the island; and also that, according to the last census given above, the blacks on the island exceeded the white people by many thousands. The balance of power then lay with the free blacks.