The Negro's Part in Southern Development

When the first census was taken in 1790, there were 1,903,332 persons living in the southern states, of which 677,275, or 35.6 per cent, were colored.In i85o, the population in the seven south- ern states included in the original census had grown to 5,85 i,2ol, of which the colored portion numbered 2,o34,or 5, or 34.8 per cent.In other words, the ratio of the color,ed population in these states was still very nearly the same in 1850 that it had been at the first census, sixty years before.In the meantime, there had been added to the seven original southern states six others including western Georgia.In several of these new states, the proportion of colored people to white was much larger than it was in the older slave states.For example, the population of Alabama was 44.7 per cent colored in 185o, and 48.2 per cent colored in 1000.In Mississippi, in 1850, colored people represented 51.2 per cent of the whole population; in 1900, 58.5 per cent.In Louisiana, in the same year, the colored population was 50.7 per cent of the whole and in m~oo, 47. per cent.In western Georgia, colored people made up 55.7 per cent of the population in 185o, and 43.9 per cent in I9oo.Florida's population was 46.o per cent colored.What part has this large portion of the population had in the industrial and commercial development of the southern states?In answering this question, we should bear in mind that the Negro people did not come to this country of their own free will.On the contrary, they were brought here against their will and at a consid- erable expense, in response to an economic demand,-in other words, to furnish the labor necessary to perform the great and difficult task of settling a new country.What is true of the first Africans who were brought to this country is true to a very large degree of those who were born on this continent.The Negro did not emigrate from Virginia, Tennessee and the other border states

Geography · History · Race, History, and American Society

• An Empire of Development

  Open Access•Begüm Adalet•American Political Science Review•2025

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