Whites................................ 300,430
Free colored..........................      341,015
Slaves................................  41,736
Unclassified..........................     127

Total.............................     583,308

or 1,802.2 inhabitants per square league; one of the densest populations on the globe, and the densest in the Antilles at the time except Barbados.

The annual increase of population in Puerto Rico, according to the calculations of Colonel Flinter, was: 

From 1778-1802 ... 24 years ... 5-12 per cent per annum.
"  1802-1812 ... 10   "   ... 1-15       "        "
1812-1820 ...  8   "   ... 3-14       "        "
"  1820-1830 ... 10   "   ... 4           "        "
"  1830-1846 ... 16   "   ... 3-15       "        "
"  1846-1860 ... 14   "   ... 3.72        "        "

or an average annual increase of a little less than 4 per cent in a period of eighty-two years.

From 1860 to 1864 the increase was small, but from that year to the end of Spanish domination the percentage of increase was larger than in any of the preceding periods.

The treaty of Paris brought 894,302 souls under the protection of the American flag.  They consisted of 570,187 whites, 239,808 of mixed race, and 75,824 negroes.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 68:  Flinter.]

CHAPTER XXXIII

AGRICULTURE IN PUERTO RICO

After the cessation of the gold produce, when the colonists were forced by necessity to dedicate themselves to agriculture, they met with many adverse conditions: 

The incursions of the Caribs, the hurricanes of 1530 and 1537, the emigration to Peru and Mexico, the internal dissensions, and last, but not least, the heavy taxes.  The colonists had found the soil of Puerto Rico admirably adapted to sugar-cane, which they brought from Santo Domingo, where Columbus had introduced it on his second voyage, and the nascent sugar industry was beginning to prosper and expand when a royal decree imposing a heavy tax on sugar came to strangle it in its birth.  Bishop Bastidas called the Government’s attention to the fact in a letter dated March 20, 1544, in which he says:  " ...  The new tax to be paid on sugar in this island, as ordained by your Majesty, will still further reduce the number of mills, which have been diminishing of late.  Let this tax be suspended and the mills in course of construction will be finished, while the erection of others will be encouraged.”

The prelate’s efforts seem to have produced a favorable effect.  Treasurer Castellanos, in 1546, loaned 6,000 pesos for the Government’s account, to two colonists for the erection of two sugar-cane mills.  In 1548 Gregorio Santolaya built, in the neighborhood of the capital, the first cane-mill turned by water-power, and two mills moved by horse-power.  Another water-power mill was mounted in 1549 on the estate of Alonzo Perez Martel with the assistance of 1,500 pesos lent by the king.  Loans for the same purpose continued to be made for years after.