The Baron Humboldt estimates it to have been in the year 1803, 5,837,100; and Mr. Poinsett, in 1824, (from the best data of the period,) 6,500,000.
In 1830, Mr. Burkhardt, an accurate German traveller, rates the several classes of Mexicans thus:
Indians, | 4,500,000 |
Whites, | 1,000,000 |
Negroes, | 6,000 |
Mestizos, and other castes | 2,490,000 |
Total | 7,996,000 |
Another estimate in 1839, reduces the sum to 7,065,000, and gives eight inhabitants to the square mil; but the most complete, and; probably, the most accurate of the recent calculations, is the one which was made by the Government itself, (without special enumeration,) and served as a basis for the call of a Congress to form a new Constitution, under the plan of Tacubaya in 1842.
Department. | Population. |
Mexico, | 1,389,590 |
Jalisco, | 679,311 |
Puebla, | 661,903 |
Yucatan, | 580,948 |
Guanajuato, | 519,606 |
Oajaca, | 500,278 |
Michoacan, | 497,906 |
San Luis Potosi, | 321,340 |
Zacatecas, | 373,575 |
Vera Cruz, | 354,380 |
Durango, | 163,618 |
Chihuahua, | 147,600 |
Sinaloa, | 147,000 |
Chiapas, | 141,306 |
Sonora, | 134,000 |
Queretaro, | 130,560 |
Nuevo Léon, | 101,108 |
Tamaulipas, | 100,068 |
Coahuila, | 75,340 |
Aguas Calientes, | 69,698 |
Tabasco, | 63,580 |
Nuevo Mexico, | 57,096 |
Californias, | 33,439 |
Total in 1842, | 7,015,509 |
Since the year 1830, the population of the Republic has been dreadfully ravaged by smallpox—measles and cholera. In the Capital alone, it is estimated that about 5000 died of the first named of these diseases. 2000 of the second, and from 15,000 to 20,000, of the third. The mortality must have been in a corresponding ratio throughout the territory.