la parte posterior que está formado de manteca pura. Los recogen en la época de la fecundacion, enciérranlos en saquitos de marima, y ahumados los comen estendiendolos sobre el pan de casabe. III. (Parliamentary papers, App. to Report on titles to lands, p. 196, note.) A pionia is a limited quantity of land, and means a lot or portion of land in a village, 50 feet broad and 100 feet deep; 100 fanegas of plough-land for wheat or oats, 10 fanegas for corn or maize, 2 acres for a pen, and 8 acres for provisions; also pasture-land sufficient to support 10 sows, 20 cows, 5 mares, 100 sheep and 20 goats. A caballeria means a lot or portion of land in a village, 100 feet broad and 200 feet deep, in every other particular, it is equal to five peonias, viz: 500 fanegas of plough-land for wheat or oats, 50 for maize, 10 acres for a pen, 40 for provisions, etc. NOTES DU CHAPITRE IX. I. (Free Mulatto, Address to Earl Bathurst, p. 5 et seq.) Mr Rome de St Laurent took advantage of his presence at the seat of government to accomplish the scheme on which he had so long meditated. He represented to the Intendant that few people would be tempted to settle in an island as yet in a wild state, without very bright prospects were held out to them; that few would quit their old abodes, where they enjoyed every comfort to hazard living in woods and wilds, continually exposed to sickness, accompanied by all the privations necessarily incidental to original colonists, unless some very extraordinary advantages should be offered as an inducement. He further said that, conversant as he was with the inhabitants of the old exhausted settlements, he would pledge himself that a rapid increase of population would be acquired so soon as an adequate encouragement was offered. There is something so contagious in enthusiasm, and so attractive in the glittering idea of planting inhabitants in a desert, that Mr Rome de St Laurent found no difficulty in communicating the enthusiastic feelings which animated him, into the breast of a benevolent man like Don Josef de Avalos. Any other than Mr Rome de St Laurent would have shrunk from the apparently visionary plan; but it is the character of enthusiasm to remove every obstacle, to consider every attempt as practicable, and not to calculate on the failure of the scheme which engrosses its attention. The Intendant, struck by the plausibility of the reasoning, and the splendour of the project, fully entered into the views of the necessity for granting some peculiar favours in order to attract settlers to the colony. Here then were sketched out the outlines of the schedule which was afterwards published in 1783. II. (Bryan Edwards, History of the abol. of the slave trade, t. IV, Whatever may be the guilt which Spain incurs by her perseverance in a barbarous traffic, it must be owned that her code of slave laws, which was promulgated in 1789, deserves to be mentioned with the highest praise. Its mildness and equity are honourable to the feelings of the framers of it, and of the sovereign by whom it was sanctioned. Nor is there any reason to believe that it is not faithfully executed. By this code, every owner of slaves must instruct them in the Christian religion, procure them to be baptized within a year, and maintain a priest to say mass, and expound to them the doctrines of christianity; he must provide them with such food. and clothing as to the magistrates may seem to be sufficient, and likewise with commodious habitations; he must encourage marriages, and not prevent the slaves of different estates from intermarrying, and, in cases where the estates are distant from each other, he must dispose of the wife to the master of the husband at a fair valuation; he must not overtoil them, nor compel those to labour who are more than sixty or less than seventeen years of age, nor employ females in work which is unsuitable to the sex; he must allow them reasonable innocent diversions; he must not turn old slaves or children adrift to starve; in the higher class of crimes he must leave the punishment to the law, and in the lower class he must not punish any slave with more than twenty five lashes, and those must begiven only by himself or his steward, and in such a manner as not to cause any contusion or efflusion of blood. Obedience to these injunctions is secured by fines and punishments of various kinds: the judge may even deprive of all his slaves an inhuman master. In addition to this, the negroes have the right to redeem themselves at an equitable price; freedom is given to every female with whom her master has cohabited; and if the father have, by any act, acknowledged the illegitimate offspring, they may, in failure of lawful children, inherit his property, and they may succeed without any such act, to the property of their mother. III. (Free Mulatto, Address to Earl Bathurst, p. 8.) In the mean time died Don Martin de Salavaria, a man of ability, temperate in his measures, affable in his disposition. To his ready co-operation is to be attributed the rapid increase of the colony; he laid the foundation stone, but did not live to witness the completion of the superstructure. IV. La pièce suivante est une nouvelle preuve que Don Antonio Barreto était gouverneur de l'île en 1784 : Don Antonio Barreto, Capitan de Ynfanteria de las tropas fixas de Guaiana, Gobernador, Commandante General y Subdelegado de Real Hacienda por la Ysla de la Trinidad de Barlovento. Por quanto me allo con la competente autoridad para conceder á los naturales de los Dominios de S. M. Cathólica y á los Extrangeros cathólicos que se trasportasen en la Ysla con el fin de establecerse en ella las tierras realengas que solicitan para cultivar y poner en valor, y haviendoseme presentado el nuevo colon Juan Bia Sala solicitando con pedimento judicial la concesion en forma de las tierras realengas que con siencia y permiso anterior del Govierno esta cultivando en el districto del Corosal despues de haver hecho su juramento de fidelidad y vasallage al Rey nuestro señor. Por tanto atendiendo á su instancia y haviendose mandado que se procediera por uno de los Agrimensores jurados del Govierno á la mensura de dichas tierras con arreglo al Capítulo quinto del Reglamento acordado y á lo demas decretado, ha resultado por el plano y la certificacion, etc., etc. Dado en Puerto de España de Trinidad de Barlovento á los diez y seis de Febrero de mil setecientos ochenta y quatro años, firmado de mi mano, sellado Ꭹ refrendado por el in fraescrito secretario de Govierno. Antonio BARRETO, Por Mdo del S. Govor y Subdo de R. Hazienda : Seco de Govno. |