Smaller
articles there are, but valuable, in raising which slaves would be found
useful,--among them cocoa, vanilla, and _frijoles_, the last being to the
Mexicans what the potato is to the Irish, the common food of the common
people. On the supposition that slaves could be made to labor well in
wheat-fields,--and under a stringent system of slavery this would be
far from impossible,--Mexico might afford profitable employment to
myriads of Africans in the course of civilization and Christianization.
Wheat returns sixty for one in the best valleys of the Temperate
Region; and when we call to mind that flour is becoming a luxury to
poor white people even in America, the propriety of having those
valleys filled up with a black population of great industrial
capability stands admitted; and as black people have an unaccountable
aversion to working for others, the necessity of slavery is established
by the high price of flour, and the capacity of the white races for
consuming twice as much as is now produced in the whole world.
It would be no difficult matter to show that Mexico is the most
productive of countries, whether we consider the variety of the
articles there grown, or the capabilities of the land for increasing
their quantity.
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