The New International Encyclopædia/Negro in America

NEGRO IN AMERICA. The first appearance of the negro in the English colonies in America was in 1619, when a cargo of negro slaves was landed at Jamestown. The scarcity of labor, especially in the Southern colonies, created an increasing demand for negro slaves; and by 1714 the number had increased to 58,850 (estimated). The greater part of these were brought direct from Africa, although considerable importations from the West Indies took place, and natural increase contributed an appreciable number. Importation was carried on more extensively in the following half century, the aggregate of negroes in the colonies reaching about 300,000 in 1754. In 1790 the first census found 757,208 in the United States. In the next hundred years this number was multiplied ten-fold. This extraordinary growth in numbers has been due chiefly to natural increase; although importations were considerable up to 1808, when they were prohibited by the Constitution. The smuggling in of Africans continued, however, up to the Civil War. Since that time there has been some immigration of negroes from the West Indies, not sufficient, however, to affect the truth of the proposition that recent growth in negro population practically represents a natural increase.

It is a matter of great importance whether or not the negro population is increasing more rapidly than the white. Table 1. from the Twelfth Census shows the number of negroes in the United States for each decade, from 1790 to 1900, together with the percentage of the total population which the negroes represent:

Table I.

	Negroes	Percentage of  total population   of United States
1790	757,208	19.3
1800	1,002,037	18.9
1810	1,377,808	19.0
1820	1,771,656	18.4
1830	2,328,642	18.1
1840	2,873,648	16.8
1850	3,638,808	15.7
1860	4,441,830	14.1
1870	4,880,009	12.7
1880	6,580,793	13.1
1890	7,488,788	11.9
1900	8,840,789	11.6

It will be seen that the proportion of negroes to the general population has declined for every decade since 1810 except 1870-80; and it is now generally understood that the apparent increase for that decade was the result of faulty enumeration. It is true that much of the relative increase in white population is to be ascribed to immigration (q.v.). Nevertheless, it appears that the native white population is increasing faster than the negro population. Thus, for the decade 1890-1900, the native whites of native parentage increased 18.9 per cent., while the negroes increased 18.1 per cent.

Distribution of Negro Population. In the colonial period negroes were found in every colony, but were most numerous in the South, where their services were in greater demand. The abolition of slavery in the North led to greater concentration in the South; and by 1860, out of 4,441,830 in the United States, only 226,216 lived in the Northern States. Since the war a considerable diffusion has taken place. At times it has been feared that a large proportion of the negroes would flock to the North; but adverse climatic conditions and the difficulty of competing with white labor have forced most of the negroes to remain in the South. See Table II. for the distribution of negroes.

Table II.

DISTRIBUTION OF NEGROES.

	1880	1890	1900
North Atlantic division	229,417	269,906	385,020
South Atlantic division	2,941,202	3,262,690	3,729,017
North Central division	385,621	431,112	495,751
South Central division	3,012,701	3,497,887	4,193,952
Western division	11,852	27,081	30,254

It will be seen that in absolute numbers the negroes have increased in each of the greater census divisions. Relatively to the general population, their numbers have increased in the last decade in the North Atlantic division only. See Table III.

Table III.

PERCENTAGE OF NEGROES IN GENERAL POPULATION.

	1890	1900
North Atlantic division	1.6	1.8
South Atlantic division	36.8	35.7
North Central division	1.9	1.9
South Central division	31.3	29.8
Western division	0.9	0.7

Georgia had a negro population in 1900 of 1,034,813, Mississippi 907,630, Alabama 827,307, South Carolina 782,321. Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas exceeded 600,000. In Alabama the negroes are 45.1 per cent. of the total population; South Carolina, 58.4; Louisiana, 47.2; Georgia, 46.7; Florida, 43.7. A more detailed statistical study would show a tendency of the negroes to concentrate in limited areas in some of the Southern States. Thus, in five counties of the Yazoo-Mississippi delta, in Mississippi, the negroes form 87.6 per cent. of the total population.

Economic Condition of the Negro. As a laborer, the negro is capable of the hardest physical toil, and works without difficulty where the humidity and heat render labor intolerable for the white. He is lacking in stability, and is inclined to roam from one district to another without any satisfactory reason; he is wasteful and careless, requiring constant supervision. These characteristics have largely determined his economic position. As an agricultural laborer the negro is indispensable in the South, more especially in the low, swampy districts, where the white laborer readily succumbs to disease. As a domestic servant the negro has proved his usefulness. In manufactures, on the other hand, negro labor is unsatisfactory, since the negro will not remain in a position long enough to develop a high degree of skill. The same deficiency is driving him out of the handicrafts. Under slavery a large number of negroes were trained in handicrafts, and proved to be valuable workmen after emancipation; but the generation which has risen since slavery has manifested an unwillingness to enter upon the long period of training necessary for the exercise of the trades. The tendency toward agricultural labor and personal service is illustrated by the statistics of occupations of the Eleventh Census. In 1890, of all negroes in gainful occupations, 57.2 per cent. were engaged in agriculture, 31.4 per cent. in personal service, 5.0 per cent. in manufactures, 4.7 per cent. in trade and transportation, and 1.1 per cent. in the professions. In the Southern States the proportion engaged in agriculture was greater—64 and 71 per cent. for the South Atlantic and South Central divisions respectively.

The wages of the negro agricultural laborer in the South usually range from six to ten dollars a month, with substantial additions in the shape of food, house room, etc. In the busy season of the year the day laborer usually receives a far higher wage. A good cotton-picker in the Yazoo-Mississippi delta often earns a dollar and a half a day. Whether wages are high or low, the negro laborer is likely at any time to leave his employment, with resulting embarrassment to the employer. Hence, it is a common practice to let small holdings to negroes, in order that interest in the crop may diminish their migratory tendencies. According to the census of 1890, 549,642 ‘farms’ were occupied by negroes, of which only 22 per cent. were owned by their occupants. The tenant farmers sometimes pay a cash rental, but more frequently farm ‘on shares.’ The landowner furnishes machinery and draught animals, receiving one-half the crop. Frequently he advances food and other supplies to the tenant, recouping himself out of the tenant's share in the crop.

Whether as tenant or as independent landowner, the negro farmer has not as yet attained a high degree of prosperity. Negligence in the care of his stock and machinery and lack of foresight in the expenditure of his income prevent him from attaining economic independence. Recent educational movements (see Negro Education) aim to encourage the negro tenant to become a landowner, and to teach him how to utilize his land to the best advantage. The great mass of the negro farmers have not yet been affected by such influences.

In the North the negro manifests a tendency to concentrate in the cities, where his economic activities are chiefly confined to personal service and unskilled labor.

Social and Moral Conditions. When account is taken of the fact that the ancestors of the American negro were taken from a state of barbarism in which moral standards were quite wanting, and were subjected only to comparatively weak moral restraint under slavery, it does not appear surprising that the social and moral condition of the negro is unsatisfactory. The great mass of the negro children receive an inadequate home training, and are therefore left to pursue their own inclinations, with the result that they readily lapse into their ancestral vices. The rules of monogamic marriage are but loosely obeyed—the exchanging of wives, for example, being not uncommon on Southern plantations. Illegitimacy is common. The percentage of illegitimate births among negroes in the city of Washington increased from 17.6 per cent. in 1879 to 26.5 per cent. in 1894. Sexual promiscuity is common wherever large negro colonies exist. Whether conditions are improving or deteriorating in this respect it is impossible to prove. It is, however, the testimony of a large number of observers that wherever the negro withdraws from the presence of the white population, moral conditions deteriorate: hence the tendency toward segregation noted above is generally viewed with anxiety by thcise who are most deeply interested in the improvement of the negro race. Wherever the economic conditions of the negro are improving, on the other hand, family life and morals also show a tendency toward improvement. The poverty of the masses of the negroes at present results in the overcrowding of cabins and tenements, which is destructive of family life and morality. For this reason students of the race problem look to the technical education of the negro as the best method of elevating him morally.

Statistics of crime present another serious problem connected with the presence of the negro in the United States. In 1890 there were in the Southern States six white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, and twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. In the Northern States there were twelve white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. In the South negro prisoners increased 29 per cent. per ten thousand between 1880 and 1890, while white prisoners increased 8 per cent. per ten thousand. While it is no doubt true that a larger percentage of crimes against property committed by negroes is detected and punished, and hence the relative amount of negro criminality may be exaggerated, it is also true that a large number of negro crimes committed against members of their own race are not punished at all, and so do not appear in the statistics of criminality. Crimes of violence appear to be increasingly frequent where the negroes are least in contact with the whites.

The greatest improvement in the position of the negro appears in the statistics of education. At the close of the Civil War it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent. could read and write. In 1900 the percentage of illiteracy had been reduced to 44.5 per cent. But it does not appear that such education as the mass of the negroes have received has perceptibly affected their material or moral conditions.

Political Condition. After the close of the Civil War, the negroes, under the leadership of a certain class of whites, practically controlled the government of many of the Southern States. (See Reconstruction.) Their ignorance and lack of political training rendered them incapable of exercising political power wisely, and they were gradually excluded from power by the whites, at first by wholly illegal means, later by State laws and constitutional amendments. In 1890 the Constitution of Mississippi was amended so as to exclude from the suffrage any person unable to read any section of the Constitution, or understand it when read to him and give a reasonable interpretation of it. Payment of a poll tax was also required. The effect of this amendment was the exclusion of the greater part of the negro vote. In 1895 South Carolina amended its Constitution so as to exclude the votes of those unable to read or write any section of the Constitution, or to show that he owned and paid taxes on property assessed at $300 or more. In 1898 Louisiana passed a similar amendment, with the addition of the so-called ‘grandfather clause,’ excusing from the limitations of the amendment all descendants of men who voted previous to the war, thus admitting to the suffrage illiterate, propertyless whites. North Carolina took similar action in 1900, though no property qualification was required. In 1901 constitutional amendments were adopted in Virginia and Alabama practically disfranchising the negro.

For the solution of the various ‘negro problems,’ social, economic, and political, several plans have been brought to public attention. Repatriation of the negro in Africa was widely advocated, especially in the first two decades after the Civil War; but the plan has been generally abandoned as impracticable, since the negro manifests no desire to return to Africa, and could not be forced to emigrate against his will. From a moral point of view, the plan has been condemned on the ground that it would mean a reversion to barbarism of the greater part of the race. Economically its effects would be grave, since the Southern States must for a long time rely upon the negro for unskilled labor.

The plan which finds greatest favor at present is the industrial education of the negro, the encouragement of land-ownership by those who are now tenants, and the general extension of education. (See Negro Education.) The plan has already produced valuable results. Graduates of institutions like Tuskegee (q.v.) and Hampton Institute have proved that under the leadership of members of their own race negro communities are capable of rapid improvement, economically and morally. See Negro; Negro Education; Slavery.

Bibliography. Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman (New York, 1889); Ingle, The Negro in the District of Columbia (Baltimore, 1893); Gannett, Statistics of the Negroes in the United States (Baltimore, 1894); Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (Philadelphia, 1899); id., The Negroes of the Black Belt (Washington, 1899); Washington, The Future of the American Negro (Boston, 1899); id., Up From Slavery (New York, 1901); Montgomery Conference Proceedings (Montgomery, 1900); Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America (New York, 1902). See also references under Negro; Negro Education.