With respect to the census taken by the Spanish authorities at different times, though they may have taken great pains to obtain correct statistical accounts, there is little doubt that the real numbers greatly exceeded those which appear in the official returns.  The reason for this discrepancy is supposed by the author mentioned to have been the direct contribution which was levied on agricultural property, inducing the landed proprietors to conceal the real number of their slaves in order to make their crops appear to have been smaller than they were.

Nor does it appear that the increase in the population of Puerto Rico is so much indebted to immigration as is generally supposed; for, notwithstanding the advantages offered to colonists by the Government in 1815, and the influx of settlers from Santo Domingo and Venezuela during the civil wars in these republics, there were only 2,833 naturalized foreigners in the island in 1830.  It appears also that the Spanish immigration from the revolted colonies did not exceed 7,000 souls.

Puerto Rico had the reputation of being very poor, consequently, no immigrants were attracted by the prospect of money-making.  The increase in the population of this island is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that three-fourths of the inhabitants are engaged in agricultural pursuits, which, of all occupations, are most conducive to health.  To which must be added the people’s frugal habits, the easy morals, the effect of climate, and the fecundity of the women of all mixed races.  These, and the peace which the island enjoyed in the beginning of the nineteenth century, together with the abolition of some of the restrictions on commerce and industry, promoted an era of prosperity the like of which the inhabitants had never before known, and the natural consequence was increase in numbers.

“In those days,” says Colonel Flinter, “if some perfect stranger had dropped from the clouds as it were, on this island, naked, without any other auxiliaries than health and strength, he might have married the next day and maintained a family without suffering more hardships or privations than fall to the lot of every laborer in the ordinary process of clearing and cultivating a piece of land.”

The earliest information on the subject was given by Alexander O’Reilly, the royal commissioner to the Antilles in 1765, who enumerates a list of 24 towns and settlements with a total population of

Free men, women, and children of all colors....39,846
Slaves of both sexes, including their children ........5,037
Total.................................................44,883

Abbad, in his “general statistics of the island,” corresponding to the end of the year 1776, gives the details of the population in 30 “partidas,” or ecclesiastical districts, as follows: 

Whites 29,263
Free colored people 33,808
Free blacks 2,803
Other free people ("agregados”) 7,835
Slaves 6,537
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Total 80,246