Free black populations, especially Haiti’s, grew while West Indian slave numbers fell

Evidence

In his speech in the House on 15 April 1831 [Thomas Fowell] Buxton made a telling comparison between the continuing decline of the slave population as against the increase of the free blacks. He pointed out that in the past ten years the number of slaves in the West Indian colonies, excluding manumissions, had decreased by 45,800. The free Negroes of Haiti had, on the other hand, increased by about 500,000 or more than doubled in 20 years. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2061

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly powered Haiti’s free black population growth — natural increase, manumission waves, or return migration? Worth chasing.