Census Statistics of the Negro: A Paper

by Walter F. Willcox

The population of the United States is divided by the census returns into four classes, the native white of native parents, the native white of foreign born parents, that is, the children of immigrants, the immigrant or foreign born white class, and the other races than the white, sometimes called collectively the colored, perhaps more accurately described as the “non-Caucasians.” The most accurate description of them is to enumerate the great races to which they belong, namely, the negro, Indian and Mongolian. Of this fourth group, the non-Caucasians, more than nineteen-twentieths are negroes and therefore when statements are made, as I shall be compelled sometimes to make them, not for the negroes but for the non-Caucasians, it will be understood that nineteen-twentieths of these are negroes and what is true, therefore, of the non-Caucasians is probably true of the negroes. These four classes correspond roughly to four grades of economic well-being,—the native white of native parents at the top, the negroes, Indians, and Mongolians at the bottom. Now it is a general fact that the lower the scale of economic well-being the less accurate on the average will be the answers to questions put them. A measure of this can be derived from the answers to the age question. It can be easily proved that the errors in reporting ages among the immigrant white are about twice as numerous as among the native white and among the non-Caucasians about twice as numerous as among the immigrant white. Where age is stated erroneously it is usually stated at a round number as a multiple of 5. The excess in the reported number at these multiples of 5 over the estimated true number is thus a measure of the accuracy of the figures. This excess in 1900 among persons between twenty-eight and sixty-two years of age inclusive for the native whites was 12.4 per cent. of the total estimated number at multiples of 5, for the foreign born white 29.8, and for the negro 81.2. What is true of the inaccuracies in the field of age statistics is probably true of other sorts of inaccuracies. A larger proportion of the negro population than of the white is homeless and therefore likely to be omitted by enumerators instructed to visit every home in the country. In Maryland a careful recount of nearly 63,000 people was had a few months after the census day in the effort to detect suspected fraud. The recount showed that in the original count the omissions among negroes had been 3.7 per cent. and among whites 1.3 per cent. These omissions were probably greater than in the general population, but it is not unlikely that the per cent. of omissions among negroes is twice as great as the per cent. among whites.

There is no race question upon which we have so great a lack of scientific information at the present time as that of the degree of direct intermixture of the two races. Public opinion at the South seems to be almost unanimous in its belief that, since the Civil War and emancipation, intermixture of the two races has decreased and that the mulatto population at the present time is largely the offspring of mulattoes alone or of mulattoes and negroes, and that there has been relatively little new infusion of white blood. But no statistical basis for this opinion exists, and general observation on a question so difficult and delicate must be regarded as a very slippery foundation for the belief. Questions on this point were introduced into the censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 and 1890, and the results were tabulated and published for each of these censuses except 1880. Prior to 1890 the question was asked in substantially the same terms, that is, simply the number of mulattoes. In 1890 unfortunately it was sought to amplify the question and Congress required the Census Office to report the number of mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons. Such precision in this field is unobtainable and, in natural reaction against the misleading results obtained in 1890, the Office in 1900 omitted the question entirely. I cannot feel that this was wise. The results obtained in 1850, 1860 and 1870 for the whole United States showed substantial agreement, the per cent. of mulattoes among the total negroes having been reported as in 1850, 11.2; in 1860, 13.2; in 1870, 12.0. These figures cannot be accepted as showing an increase in the proportion of mulattoes down to the Civil War and a slight decrease after that time, much less can the slightly larger proportion of mulattoes reported in 1890 (15.2 per cent.) with a different form of question be regarded as any evidence of an increase of race mixture since emancipation, but the general conclusion that between one-eighth and one-ninth of the negro population at about the time of the Civil War was mulatto may be regarded as probable.

I believe that if the question should be repeated in 1910 in substantially the same terms as those employed in 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880, the results would be likely to indicate far more accurately than general observation can do whether the proportion of mulattoes among the negroes has increased or decreased since emancipation. To establish this, one need not believe that the reported percentages at former censuses were correct. All that would be necessary for such a result would be that the question put in substantially the same terms at intervals during half a century would secure answers which if not entirely accurate would at least err in the same direction and by about the same amount.

At the present time there are about nine and one-fifth million negroes under the United States flag, including those in Porto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii, as well as the negroes of continental United States. This does not include the negritoes, much less the Malays, of the Philippine Islands. In continental United States, excluding Alaska and our insular accessions, there are about eight and five-sixths million negroes. Nearly nine-tenths of them (89.7 per cent.) live in the southern states, that is, the states south of Mason and Dixon’s line, the Ohio River and the parallel of the southern boundary of Missouri. The per cent. living in the southern states, however, is very slowly decreasing. In 1860, 92.2 per cent. were living there; in 1880, 90.5 per cent.; in 1900, 89.7 per cent., or in other words, in 1860, 78 negroes among each 1,000 in the country were living outside of the South, in 1900, 103 in each 1,000. Apparently there was a considerable change in the distribution of the negroes as a result of the upheaval in the Civil War. Then followed a period of relative quiescence, but in the last decade of the century there was an increase in the northward current of negro migration, especially to northern cities. That the negro population in our large cities is increasing with greater rapidity than the white population appears clearly when the totals of the two races are obtained for the thirty-eight cities which had at least 100,000 inhabitants in 1900. The increase of negroes in these cities, 1890 to 1900, was 38.0 per cent., and that of whites 32.7 per cent., and in the five southern cities of this class, Baltimore, Washington, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans, the increase of whites was 20.8, and of negroes 25.8 per cent. Washington was the only southern city of this class in which the negro population did not increase, 1890 to 1900, with greater rapidity than the white. This rapid increase of the negro population in the larger cities of the country is the more significant, because thirty-three of these thirty-eight cities lie in the north and west and therefore increase of their negro population usually results from long distance migration, and because also the negro population of smaller cities and of country districts has been increasing as a rule less rapidly than the white population.

There is no traceable tendency to a separation between negroes and whites in the South whereby the negro population is becoming more predominant in the rural districts and the white population in the cities. Perhaps the best evidence on this point is that derived from the 242 cities in the South Atlantic and South Central States, which had at least 2,500 inhabitants both in 1890 and in 1900, and for which, therefore, the race composition of the population was separately returned. The negro population of these 242 places increased between 1890 and 1900 by 21.7 per cent., the white population by 26.5 per cent. The negro population of the rest of the southern States outside these 242 places increased 16.4 per cent., while the white population outside these 242 places increased 25.0 per cent. The figures show the remarkable fact, which so far as I know is unparalleled, that the growth of white population in the South has been almost as rapid in the country districts as in the cities. Whether this means that the white population is betaking itself more to agriculture, it would be difficult to assert from the figures. The negro population is increasing in southern cities about one-third faster than in country districts. Or, the facts may be stated perhaps more intelligibly in this way. In the 242 southern cities for which the race figures are distinguished both for 1890 and for 1900, there were in 1890, 464 negroes to 1,000 whites; in 1900 there were 447, a decrease of 17. Meantime, in the country districts there were in 1890, 522 negroes to 1,000 whites, and in 1900 there were 486, a decrease of 36. These figures show that the decrease in the proportion of negroes relative to whites in the southern States in the last decade has been twice as rapid in the country districts as in the cities.

In studying the increase of the negro population it must be borne in mind that the figures of 1870 are admitted to be seriously inaccurate. There are some reasons also for doubting the accuracy of the census of the negroes in 1890. In order to avoid using these erroneous or questionable figures and also in order to base the computation on long periods of time, the increase has been computed by each of the five twenty-year periods of the nineteenth century. As the negro problem is preëminently one of interest to the South it seems fairer to compare the growth of the two races in that region. Such a comparison shows that the negro population of the South increased most rapidly during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century and that its rate of increase steadily declined to the end of the century. The rate of increase of southern whites was highest not from 1800 to 1820, but 1840 to 1860. Perhaps the results may be stated in a way to make them most easily intelligible by treating the rate of increase of whites in the southern States in the given twenty-year period as 100 and comparing with it the rate of increase of southern negroes during the same period of time. Following this method, the increase of the southern negroes, 1800 to 1820, was to that of southern whites as 125 to 100, that from 1820 to 1840 was 110, that from 1840 to 1860 was 87, that from 1860 to 1880 was 90, and that from 1880 to 1900 was 57. These figures show that since 1840 the increase of southern negroes has been less rapid than that of southern whites, that the increase from 1860 to 1880 was relatively more rapid than in the preceding or the following twenty-year period, suggesting that the period of war and of reconstruction affected the increase of the white race more than that of the negroes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the southern negroes were increasing much faster than the southern whites. At the end of it they were increasing only about three-fifths as fast.

But to complete the presentation of the results reached by the Census Bureau on this point, it should be added that if the results for the last twenty-year period be analyzed by decades a different conclusion is indicated. Comparison of the rates of growth of southern negroes and southern whites for those two decades shows that the rate of increase for southern negroes, 1880 to 1890, was to that of southern whites as 55 is to 100, while in the decade from 1890 to 1900 it was as 68 to 100. I confess myself skeptical of the accuracy of these figures. It is difficult for me to accept results which show on their face that the rate of increase of southern whites east of the Mississippi River was less, 1890 to 1900, than it was 1880 to 1890, the rate falling from 19.1 to 18.7, while that for southern negroes in the same area was much greater in the second decade, the rate rising from 10.6 to 15.7. At the same time I see nothing better at present than to mark these figures as questionable and to suspend judgment until the results for 1910 are published. It may be that the increase among the negroes has been affected by the marked prosperity of the South in recent years and has been affected more conspicuously than the figures for the whites.

With reference to sex it may be noted that there is an excess of females among the negro population of the United States, while this is not true either of the Indians or of the native whites. Strangely enough, this excess of females is found even at the very earliest ages. It is a general rule that the number of male children born exceeds the number of female. Among 100 children born, on the average about 51 are male and 49 female. The scanty records of births in cities where the negroes constitute a considerable element of the population, show that in this respect the negroes conform to the rule. Yet negro children even at the very earliest ages, as enumerated by the census, show an excess of females over males. This is true of negro children under one month, and of each of the four other subdivisions of age under one year. Indeed it is true for every year of age up to nine. It may be noted that this anomaly appears for the first time in the figures for 1900. Whether it is due to the fact that that census first made the distinction between negro population and the total colored, including the Indians and Mongolians, I am unable to say.

In the city population of the United States as a rule, females outnumber the males. This generalization holds true of the great majority of cities east of the Mississippi River. It is more true of the negroes than it is of the whites. In the southern cities and towns having at least 2,500 inhabitants in 1900, there were 9 more negro females than males in each 100 of negro population. Among children the two sexes were approximately equal in numbers, so that if the figures allowed us to exclude the children the preponderance of females would be still greater. The cause is doubtless to be found in large measure in the greater demand and greater opportunity for female labor in cities.

At the present time rather more than half of the negroes over ten years of age are able to write. The per cent. of illiteracy has decreased rapidly in the last ten years. In 1890 it was 57.1, while in 1900 it was 45.5. This rapid decrease in negro illiteracy has gone on parallel with the rapid decrease of illiteracy among whites. At the present time the negroes as a race show about seven times the proportion of illiterates that the whites do and about four times the proportion of illiterates found among southern whites, and these ratios between the two races have not materially changed since 1890. Illiteracy is much more prevalent in the country districts than it is in the cities. About half of the negroes living outside cities having at least 25,000 inhabitants are illiterate, while in these cities less than one-third are illiterate. The rapid development of the educational system among negroes in the South has left clear traces upon the proportion of illiterates in the several age classes. The highest proportion of illiterates is found among negroes at least sixty-five years of age, the lowest among negroes ten to fourteen years of age. The difference between these two age limits is rather greater than the difference between city and country negroes, the illiteracy of all negroes over sixty-five being rather greater than that of negroes in country districts, and the illiteracy of negroes between ten and fourteen years of age being rather less than that of all negroes living in cities having at least 25,000 inhabitants. If the per cent. of illiteracy among negroes should continue to dwindle in the future as rapidly as it did, 1890 to 1900, an improbable contingency, negro illiteracy would disappear by 1940.