Black America

The total population of the United States, exclusive of Alaska and of the Indian Territory, was, according to the official returns of the Tenth Census, 50,155,783. This Census was taken as long ago as 1880; but it is, and will for some time continue to be, the latest enumeration concerning which full statistical details are in possession of the world. An Eleventh Census was taken in June, 1890. This, so far as has as yet been ascertained, fixes the population of the great Republic at 62,622,250.^[1] The details of it are, however, still unknown. We are altogether in the dark as to how many of the people are males and how many females, how many white and how many coloured; and months, if not years, may be expected to elapse before the hard-working Census Bureau at Washington shall find itself in a position to enlighten us upon these and other particular points of interest. But there is no reason to suppose that the full details of the Eleventh Census will, when they are published, greatly surprise the statistical experts who have made a special study of the increase of American population in the past and of its probable increase in the future; nor are there any signs that the results of the Eleventh Census will, upon one point of special significance, be much more reassuring than were those of the Tenth. That point of special significance is the rate of increase of the coloured people in certain extensive sections of the old slave-holding States of the South. This rate of increase has hitherto been vastly superior to that of the white people in the same districts, and is a thing of no new growth. The four States, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, were numbered for the first time in 1790. Their white and coloured populations in that year and in the year 1880, and the rates of increase per cent. during the ninety intermediate years, are shown in the following tables:—

While, therefore, in the ninety years the white population of the four States has grown from 923,385 to only 2,956,111, the coloured population has grown from 549,597 to 2,492,358. In other words, while the whites have increased only 220·1 per cent., the blacks have increased 353·4 per cent., and the latter have been continuing to increase with superior speed in face of the facts that now for more than a generation black immigration has practically ceased, and that the black race is considerably shorter-lived than the white. It is remarkable, too, that in each of the four States the rate of increase has been greater among the blacks than among the whites.

In only the above-mentioned four of the eight old Slave States of the South was there a Census in 1790. The first census of Mississippi was taken in 1800, of Louisiana in 1810, of Alabama in 1820, and of Florida in 1830. The first enumerations of the eight States showed a total white population of 1,066,711; the Census of 1880 showed the white population to be 4,695,253, an increase of 340·2 per cent. On the other hand, the first enumerations of the eight States showed a coloured population of but 654,308, while the Census of 1880 showed a coloured population of no less than 4,353,097, or an increase of 563·7 per cent. Whereas, therefore, at the earliest enumerations the blacks formed only about 38 per cent. of the population, they formed in 1880 about 48 per cent. In short, in these States, and in the period under review, the blacks steadily drew ever nearer and nearer to the attainment of a numerical majority. In 1860 they were still nearly half a million behind the whites. To-day, in the eight old Slave States of the South the whites and the blacks are practically equal in numbers, and in several individual States the blacks have a formidable and growing majority.

It is in these last States most particularly that what is known as the Negro Problem constitutes the most serious and complex social question of the hour. For most of the other States of the Union the problem possesses as yet only a secondary interest. The total number of negroes and coloured people in the whole of the United States in 1880 was 6,580,793. Of these, 4,353,097 lived, as has been seen, in the eight old Slave States of the South, and there formed practically one-half of the population; 1,660,674 lived in the seven border States, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee, with 7,132,457 white fellow-citizens around them; and the remaining 567,022 were all but lost among the 31,575,260 whites—not to mention the Chinese and Indians—in the rest of the Union. So sparse, indeed, is the negro population, save in the fifteen States that have been named, that it need not be considered as a factor of any weight whatever; but in those fifteen States it is an ever-present force that demands recognition by all political parties. The fifteen States may be thus grouped:—

In the States grouped under A, or, at least, in portions of them, the negro question occasionally assumes importance, though it is normally dormant. That it is not more often to the fore appears to result mainly from the political apathy or stupidity of the coloured population, which is frequently in a position, acting with organisation and method, to affect the balance of parties. In the States grouped under B the power of the negro is, theoretically, considerably greater. He has a vote in North Carolina if he be an actual citizen and not a convict; in Virginia if he be an actual citizen and not a lunatic, idiot, convict, duellist, or soldier; in Georgia if he be an actual taxpaying citizen and not a lunatic, idiot, or criminal; in Florida if he be a United States citizen, or have declared an intention of becoming one, and if he be not a lunatic, idiot, criminal, duellist, or bettor on elections; and in Alabama if he be a citizen, or have declared an intention of becoming one, and if he be not an idiot, an Indian, or a person convicted of crime. In none of these States is it definitely required that the negro voter shall be able to read or write; in only one is it required that he shall be even a taxpayer. The general requisites are merely manhood, a certain length of residence, and registration. Finally, in the States grouped under C, the negro is, if only he cared, and were permitted, to exercise his franchise, all-powerful. In Louisiana the qualification for the suffrage at present excludes no male citizen who, being of age, is not an idiot, lunatic, or criminal. In Mississippi the law is equally generous. In South Carolina the male citizen who is of age may vote unless he be a lunatic, an inmate of an asylum, almshouse, or prison, a duellist, or a soldier. There is no property or taxpaying qualification. The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States declares that “the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude;” and the spirit of that amendment is, in theory, most fully honoured by all the Commonwealths. So completely is this the case that in 1880 the voting populations of the three States (C) were officially returned as:—

The slight coloured voting inferiority in Louisiana in 1880 is attributable to the high rate of infant and child mortality among the negroes as compared with the whites. It probably exists no longer. There is now, almost beyond question, a very considerable coloured voting majority in all these States, and probably a slight one in Alabama as well. The American Constitution recognises the right of the majority to rule. The impartial observer, therefore, might expect to find the government of Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, and possibly also of Alabama, almost, if not entirely, in the hands of the negro and coloured majority; but upon his arrival in the South he finds no trace of anything of the kind. He finds, on the contrary, that the white man rules as supremely as he did in the days of slavery. The black man is permitted to have little or nothing to say upon the point; he is simply thrust on one side. At every political crisis the cry of the minority is, “This is a white man’s question,” and the cry is generally uttered in such a tone as to effectually warn off the black man from meddling with the matter.

I purpose later to show by what methods the white man attains his object when the usual cry fails to produce the whole of the expected result. I purpose also to show some of the reasons that are advanced by the Southern white man for his consistent refusal to countenance any negro interference in the affairs of State. For the present I confine myself to indicating the situation as it is and as it will be, and to suggesting that the existing white supremacy, whether it be for good or for evil, cannot continue indefinitely, and must eventually give place, either by free concession or as a tribute to brute force, to a new order of things.

Not only in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, as wholes, is there a negro majority among the population, a similar majority exists in nearly all the low-lying portions of the Southern States, from the Chesapeake to Florida and from Florida to the borders of Mexico, and especially in those low-lying districts that are removed from the great towns.^[2] The face of the country consists, speaking broadly, of hill-tracts, and of cities, where the whites are in a majority, and of lowlands, where the blacks are numerically supreme; and there are obvious natural reasons at the bottom of this division of the races. Heat is irksome to the Anglo-Saxon and correspondingly grateful to the negro. Trade, mining, and manufactures attract the white man; agriculture and tillage are preferred by the black. In the undrained lowlands the negro constitution defies fevers and other ills that often weaken if they do not actually prove fatal to the white man’s health. And so, apart from questions of births and deaths, some parts of the Southern States tend to every year become blacker, while others as steadily become whiter.

And the process which is initiated by geographical and climatic considerations is regularly aided by economical ones. The white man cannot compete as a labourer, or even as an artisan, upon equal terms with the black. He needs higher pay and better food. In black centres, therefore, the poor white man finds himself daily becoming more and more out of his element. Ordinary petty village trades, such as cobbling, tailoring, smithery, and carpentry, are thus, throughout the South, falling very much into the hands of the negroes; while the poor white men, who once had a monopoly of such humble pursuits, are going elsewhere in search of employment. They go, not to the uplands and cities of the South, but to the North, and, above all, to the new West, where every working man with strong arms, a good head, and an honest heart, has to-day the most brilliant of prospects.

The blacks, on the other hand, move about very little. They appreciate such little comforts as they have been able to gather around them since their manumission, and neither the cold North nor the half-settled West has any charms for them. They have at present no strong ambitions and very few wants. In the estimation of ninety-nine out of a hundred of them a cabin in sunny South Carolina is a much more desirable thing than a five-storeyed house in New York or Chicago, and immeasurably preferable to a store in Nebraska or a hut in Wyoming. Moreover, the black likes to be among his black kinsmen. A white man may occasionally persuade himself to regard a negro as his brother, in theory at least. The black man cares little for theory, and bluntly recognises the white man as a person of alien and, upon the whole, objectionable character from surface to core. And even the most sympathetic white man prefers, in practice, to be surrounded by a white majority rather than by a black, especially when he is at home in the bosom of his family.

These considerations, almost as much as the superior fecundity and fewer wants of the negro, are leading the Black Belt of the South to become blacker than ever. White immigration has almost ceased; white emigration is growing. In 1880, as has been shown, there were 391,105 whites and 604,332 blacks in South Carolina. Of these only 7,686, or ·7 per cent., were of foreign birth. Twenty years before, the number of foreign-born people in the State had been 9,986, and in 1870 it had been 8,074. In the eight old Slave States of the South (B and C) there were, in 1860, 148,662 foreign-born residents, in 1870 but 123,931, and in 1880 only 119,686; while of persons born out of the States, but within the United States, there were 1,813 less in 1880 than in 1870. These are facts which, even if taken alone, are of deep significance. Still more striking, however, are some estimates which have been drawn up for me by a distinguished statistical expert at Washington, and which show the probable numerical aspect of the race question in the eight old Slave States in the near future. Several years ago Professor E. W. Gilliam published a forecast of the developments of the present situation. His estimate of the rate of increase of the Southern whites and negroes was somewhat more alarmist than that which I am now able to give. The new estimate is based upon the general, though not upon the detailed, results of the Census of 1890; and as it also makes allowance for the often alleged imperfections of the Census of 1870, I think that it may be accepted as, upon the whole, a better one than that of Mr. Gilliam, or, indeed, than any that has yet been attempted. I feel bound to mention Mr. Gilliam’s name in connection with this matter, for his tables have been very widely quoted, and have been made the foundation of much discussion and speculation. I only reject them because I have others which are the results of fuller and later knowledge. Mr. Gilliam’s views on some unfortunately less changeable aspects of the race question remain to-day as true and as valuable as when they were committed to paper seven years ago, and I hope to quote them when, after having completed the dry statistical survey of the whole subject, I proceed to deal with the difficulties and dangers of the Southern problem. Here, in the meantime, is my informant’s estimate of the white and coloured populations of the Black Belt States in the years 1900 and 1910 respectively:—

As illustrating the moderation of this estimate, it is worth while adding that Professor Gilliam, writing in 1883, was of opinion that, from 1880 onwards, the whites in the South might be expected to increase at the rate of 2 per cent. per annum, and to double their numbers in thirty-five years, and that the blacks in the South might be expected to increase at the rate of 3½ per cent. per annum and to double their numbers in twenty years. These formulæ would give to the eight old Slave States about 9,390,000 whites in 1915, and about 17,400,000 blacks in 1920. The actual rate of increase is, however, a comparatively unimportant matter. The significant fact of the situation is that in three or four of the eight States the coloured population already outnumbers the white, and that in every one of the remaining four or five States the existing white majority has been for years growing smaller and smaller, and bids fair within a very short period to disappear entirely, and to make place for an overwhelming and ever-growing black majority.

At present, even in South Carolina, which is the “blackest” State in the Union, the white, and the white alone, rules. He seized power, in self-defence it is true, by fraud and violence, and he retains it by deception and intimidation; yet, strange to say, even the most respected and (in ordinary dealings) upright white people of the South excuse and defend this course of procedure; and, stranger still, very many honourable citizens of the North, Republicans as well as Democrats, do not hesitate to declare, “If I were a Southern white man I should act as the Southern white men do.” The cardinal principle of the political creed of 99 per cent. of the Southern whites is that the white man must rule at all costs and at all hazards. In comparison with this principle every other article of political faith dwindles into ridiculous insignificance. White domination is a living question that dwarfs tariff reform, protection, free trade, and the very pales of party. The white who does not believe in it above all else is regarded as a traitor and an outcast. The race question is, in the South, the sole question of burning interest. If you be sound on that question you are one of the elect; if you be unsound, you take rank as a pariah or as a lunatic.

After the War of Secession the North complacently folded its hands and announced that the race problem had been for ever disposed of. It soon learned that such had not been precisely the case. Then, after making an ill-advised and spasmodic effort at settlement, it declared that the race problem was no longer its affair, and that it might be left to solve itself. But since then years have elapsed, and the question still remains unsettled, paralysing the South, menacing the whole Union, and liable at any moment to involve hundreds of thousands of miles of territory and millions of human lives in a catastrophe scarcely inferior to that of the great Civil War. Is it not time, then, for something to be done towards freeing the South from the incubus of the situation, and the North from the danger that lurks still along the line which, less than a generation ago, saw Federal and Confederate striving in vain to settle this very question?

It may be asked: Why cannot the South submit itself to the operation of those principles by which the North is governed? Why not allow the majority—no matter what may be its hue—to rule?

The answer is that the experiment has been to some extent tried, and has utterly failed. The history of the attempt and of the failure is given in the following chapter. The outlines of that history must be studied by every one who aspires to understand the nature and difficulties of the Southern problem as it exists to-day. I do not, therefore, apologise for setting forth at some length the gloomy narrative of one of the most extraordinary episodes in the modern history of any civilised country. If I needed further excuse, I might find it in the fact that my story, though it deals with events of comparatively recent occurrence and of a very terrible character, is unknown to the majority of Englishmen. Even in the North it is now well-nigh forgotten; and only in the long-suffering South are the hideous lessons of it still fully remembered.