In considering the present conditions of the negro, we may first note the important fact that he is hard at work. The production of the South clearly shows that the sometime slaves, or rather their children, are laboring even more effectively than they did in the time of legal servitude. This disposes of the notion that the blacks will not work without other compulsion than those needs which bend the backs of his white brethren. It is evident that the generation born since the war is laborious and productive up to, if not beyond, the average of men. It is also plain that they are fitted for a rather wider range of employment than they were accustomed to follow as slaves. The negro has proved himself well adapted for labor in mines and about furnaces—in all places, indeed, where strength and a moderate share of intelligence are required. The fear that he would desert the land and flock to the cities has not been justified. He appears less disposed to yield to the temptations of the great towns than the whites. The first rage of the freed people for schooling seems to have passed. A good many of them are getting the rudiments of an education, some few a larger culture, but there appears to be danger that the folk may lapse into indifference concerning all training that is not immediately profitable.
As to the moral condition of the negroes, there appears to be good reason for believing that it is now in the way of betterment. Little as they were disturbed in their conduct by the sudden change in their apparent place in the world, they were for a time somewhat shaken as regards the limits of their rights. So far as I have been able to learn, they are much less given to stealing than they were just after they were freed, or even as they were as slaves. Their marital relations, though leaving much still to be desired, are improving, as is all that relates to the care of their children. Most important is the fact that loose relations between white men and negro women have in great measure ceased, so that the unhappy mixture of the races, which has been the curse of tropical states, is apparently not likely to prove serious.
Although the negro is not rapidly gaining property, he is making a steadfast advance in that direction. The money sense in all that relates to capital he, with a few exceptions, is yet to acquire. This part of his task is certain to be difficult to him, as it is to all peoples who are in the earlier stages of civilized thought. The experiment of the Freedman’s Bank, by which many suffered at the hands of designing white people, has left a bad impression upon the minds of the negroes. Where they save, they commonly hoard their store. As yet they have not become accustomed to associative action. They rarely enter into any kind of partnership. In this indisposition to attain the advantages of mutual support we have another evidence of the primitive condition of the folk.
Before endeavoring to go further with this account of the present state of the negroes of this country, it is well to note the fact that while much has been done to blend the original diversities of their stock, these differences have by no means passed away. The seekers after slaves in Africa were not choice as to their purchases or captures; they reckoned as black if he were no darker than brown, and they were not at all careful to see that his hair was kinky. Thus it came about that from the wide ethnic range of the Dark Continent there came to us a great variety of people—a much more diverse population than we have received from Europe. It might be supposed that the conditions of slavery would quickly have effaced these differences, but even in that state there was choice in mating, and certain stocks have such prepotency that a small share of their blood stamps those who have it in a definite manner. The result is that, under the mask of a common dark, though really very variedly tinted skin, we have an exceeding diversity of race and quality.
It is discreditable to our students of anthropology that as yet there has been no considerable effort made to determine the varieties which exist in our negro population or the source of their peculiarities in the tribes whence they come. In a small way, for many years, on numerous journeys in the South, I have endeavored to classify the blacks I have met. For a long time I kept these results in a roughly tabulated form. Although such observations, including no measurements and giving only eye impressions of the general form, can have no determinable value, they may, in the absence of better work, deserve consideration. The result of this rough inspection of many thousand of these peoples in nearly every State in the South has been to indicate that there are several, probably more than six, groups of so-called negroes which represent original differences of stock or the mixed product of their union. The more characteristic of these I will now briefly describe.
For convenience I will first note those who are termed mulattoes, in which there is an evident mixture of white blood. Such admixture seems to be distinctly traceable if it amounts to as little as one eighth; it is said that one sixteenth of negro blood, or less, will be revealed on close study of the hair and skin. The proportion of the negroes in our Southern States who have white ancestry in any degree does not, in my opinion, exceed one tenth, and may be as small as one twentieth of the whole number. Judging only by the hue of the skin, the observer will be likely to make the proportion larger, for the reason that he will include many persons who, because they come from stocks that were not blackskinned, appear at first sight to be mulattoes of some degree. These Eu-Africans, as we may term them—imitating in the term the useful word Eurasian, which is applied to the mixture of European and Asiatic people in India—are in appearance exceedingly diverse, the variety being caused by the varying share of the blood of the two races, as well as by the diversities of the stocks to which the parents belong.
Besides the mixture of the European and black, we have another less well known but not uncommon between the negro and the Indian. This is often met with among the remnants of the Indian tribes in all the eastern part of the United States. The two groups of primitive people appear to have found their despised lot a basis for a closer union. The dark skin of the Algonkins, however, makes the remnants of that people appear to have more black blood than they really possess. Not only did stray negroes resort to the Indian settlements, but some of the tribes owned many slaves. The result is that in many parts of this country, but particularly in Virginia, the Carolinas, Florida, and Georgia, the attentive observer often will note the Indian’s features stamped on those of the African.
Coming to the diversities of the stock among the pure Africans, we may first note the type which, in the rough judgment of the public, is the real or Guinea negro. That he is so taken is doubtless because he is the most distinctly characterized of all black people. The men of this well-known group are generally burly fellows, attaining at a relatively early age a massive trunk and strong thighs; they have thick necks and small though variedly shaped heads. The bridge of the nose is low, and the jaws protruding. The face, though distinctly of a low type, very often has a very charming expression—one in which the human look is blended with a remnant of the ancient animal who had not yet come to the careful stage of life. The women of this group are well made, but commonly less so than the men. In general form the two sexes of the group are much alike, a feature which also indicates an essentially low station. These people of the Guinea type form perhaps one half of the Southern negroes.
Along with the Guinea type goes another much rarer, which at first sight might by the careless observer be confounded with the lower group. The only common features are the burly form of both, the deep-black hue, and the general form of the features. The men we are now considering have a higher and in every way better head. Their foreheads are fuller, and the expression of the face, to my view, quite other than that of the Guinea men. In place of the sly, evasive child-animal look of the lower creature, this fellow has rather a lordly port, the expression of a vigorous, brave, alert man. This, which I am disposed to term the Zulu type, from the resemblance to that people, is on many accounts the most interesting of all the groups we have to consider. My idea that it may have come from the above-named tribe is based on an acquaintance with a party of southern Africans who some forty years ago were brought to this country by a showman. I came to know them well. They were attractive fellows, of the same quality as certain blacks I had known in Kentucky. When I saw these strangers I perceived their likeness to certain able blacks whose features and quality had made impressions on my mind that remain clear to the present day. It is likely that this element of the negro people I have termed Zulu is not of any one tribe; it may be of several diverse stocks with no other common quality than that which vigor gives. They may, in part, be from Bangora tribes of the Congo Valley, or even Soudanese. The proportion of this group to the whole is small; because it merges into the other it can not well be estimated. I find that I have reckoned it in my notes as one twentieth of the whole black population.
Set over against these robust blacks, but also of high quality, is a group less distinctly limited, which has for its characteristics a rather tall, lean form, a slender neck, a high head, and a thin face, usually with a nose of better form than is commonly found, sometimes approaching the aquiline. The skin of these people is often as black as that of the Guinea folk, yet it is of another hue—a deader black, perhaps due to some difference in the skin glands. Usually, however, there is a trace of brown in the complexion. Now and then the relative straightness of the hair and their facial profiles suggest that the peculiarity of this people is due to an admixture of Semitic (probably Arabian) blood. Negroes of this type are most abundant in the northern part of the South, particularly in Virginia. They are rare in the plantation States. This is mayhap due to the fact that in the selection of people to be sold to the traders such delicate folk were retained where they belonged—as house servants. These rare negroes, which for lack of a better name will be termed Arabs, are few in number. They can not be reckoned at more than one per cent of the whole.