140 Françoise Latour da Veiga Pinto,
A. Carreiratry to pick out the areas in which its influence made itself directly and specifi-
cally felt; and we accordingly propose to take the demographic and the financial
aspects.
Some writers, such as Joël Serräo, consider that the population influx
arising from the slave trade was essential in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
in that it made up for the population losses caused by the discoveries and over-
seas expansion. C. R. Boxer estimates that in the course of the sixteenth century,
2,400 men, mostly young and fit, left Portugal annually. This is a large number,
considering that—according to the 1527 census—the total population of Portu-
gal at that time varied between 1 million and 1.4 million.
On the opposite side, it is generally reckoned that imported slaves made
up a tenth of the population of the large cities, and this proportion seems to
hold good for the duration of the slave trade. We have no accurate figures
for the rural areas.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the slaves imported into Portu-
gal were as heterogeneous as the discoveries themselves: Moors, Chinese,
Indians and Negroes were all to be found in Lisbon. The last named were in the
majority: they were employed in the hardest agricultural work, sent when
necessary to unhealthy parts of the country, used for clearing the ground and
also in domestic service. The growth of a society based on slave labour undoubt-
edly had a variety of consequences. Moralists attributed the laxity of morals
to it, and down the centuries kept up a barrage of criticism of the licentiousness
and frivolity of all classes of society, accompanied by a highly developed taste
for idleness—the heavy work being left to slaves.
Nor must we overlook Brazil's influence on Portugal: for Brazil was
herself profoundly marked by the centuries-old influx of African labour. This
factor, however, is virtually impossible to evaluate, because it is, so to speak,
'two-way'.
It is interesting to note, on the other hand, that, after abolition, white
Portuguese emigration to Brazil to some extent took the place of the slave
trade, being in a way a clandestine form of it similar to those mentioned above.
What happened was that Brazilian planters 'engaged' Portuguese workers on
terms very similar to those of the Negroes shipped to the plantations of Säo
Tomé. This is borne out by a very marked increase in Portuguese emigration
to Brazil from 1850 onwards. These Portuguese, mostly from the northern
provinces were indebted almost for life to their bosses for the cost of their
passages; they took the place of the Negroes on the plantations, and led exactly
the same sort of life.
Turning now to the financial effect of the slave trade on Portugal's
socio-economic development, the most reliable data available from existing
sources are those concerning the profits made by the crown. These can be
calculated from the duties collected on contracts and the various charges and