Baron Humboldt is authority for some interesting figures on the traffic. "The number of Africans imported from 1521 to 1763 was probably 60,000, whose descendants exist" (he writes in 1856) "among the free mulattoes, the greater part of which inhabit the eastern part of the island. From 1763 to 1790 when the trade in negroes was thrown open, Havana received 24,875 (by the Tobacco Company, 4,957 from 1763 to 1766; by the contract with the Marquis de Casa Enrile, 14,132, from 1773 to 1779; by the contract with Baker and Dawson, 5,786 from 1786 to 1789). If we estimate the importation of slaves in the eastern part of the island during these twenty-seven years (1763 to 1790) at 6,000, we have a total importation of 80,875 from the time of the discovery of Cuba, or more properly speaking, from 1521 to 1790." It was in the period of which we are writing, particularly in the very early years of the nineteenth century, that the slave trade most flourished in Cuba. It is estimated that more slaves were bought and sold from 1790 to 1820 than in all the preceding history of the Spanish possession of the island. England, possibly seeing what an enormous power for developing the natural wealth of the island an influx of free labor would give to Spain, entered into an arrangement with Ferdinand VII.--whose sole animating motive in dealing with his foreign possessions seems to have been to grab the reward in hand and let the future take care of itself--whereby, upon the payment by England to the king of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, to compensate for the estimated loss which the cessation of the slave trade would mean to the colonies, Ferdinand agreed that the slave trade north of the equator should be restricted from November 22, 1817, and totally abolished on May 30, 1820. Ferdinand accepted the money, but as we have seen he did not fulfil his contract and winked at the continuation of the importation of labor from Africa. The following table shows an importation into the district of Havana alone, for a period of 31 years, of 225,574 Africans: 1790 2,534 1806 4,395 1791 8,498 1807 2,565 1792 8,528 1808 1,607 1793 3,777 1809 1,152 1794 4,164 1810 6,672 1795 5,832 1811 6,349 1796 5,711 1812 6,081 1797 4,552 1813 4,770 1798 2,001 1814 4,321 1799 4,919 1815 9,111 1800 4,145 1816 17,737 1801 1,659 1817 25,841 1802 13,832 1818 19,902 1803 9,671 1819 17,194 1804 8,923 1820 4,122 1805 4,999 ------- Total 225,574