INCREASE OF THE COLORED POPULATION. 667 



colored race, owing to tlie interest of masters. It was expected that, 

 with freedom, the colored people would begin to die out like the Ind- 

 ians. This was based on the general doctrine that, when a superior 

 and inferior race occupy the same territory, in free competition, the 

 inferior will go into a decline. That this was a total misconception 

 of the subject, on theoretical principles, it would not now be difficult 

 to show ; and, that it was practically wide of the mark, the late census 

 is abundantly sufficient to prove. Still, in the facts known previous 

 to this census, there was much in favor of such a view. In the decades 

 preceding emancipation, the ratio of increase of the free colored was 

 only about half that of the slaves. 



Mr. Kennedy, Suj^erintendent of the Census of 1860, believed that 

 freedom was unfavorable to the multiplication of the colored people. 

 He says, " Leaving the issue of the present civil war for time to de- 

 termine, it should be observed, if large numbers of slaves shall be 

 hereafter emancipated, so many will be transferred from a faster to a 

 slower rate of increase." He held that *'the white race is no more 

 favorable to the progress of the African race in its midst than it has 

 been to the perpetuity of the Indians on its borders." He was of 

 opinion that the " developments of the census, to a good degree, ex- 

 plain the slow progress of the free colored population in the Xorthern 

 States, and indicate, with unerring certainty, the gradual extinction of 

 that people the more rapidly as, whether free or slave, they become 

 diffused among the dominant race." 



If these were the views which appeared to be warranted by the 

 showing of the eighth and previous censuses, they were certainly not 

 contravened by anything in the ninth census (1870), but apparently 

 more than confirmed ; and there was much to encourage the prevailing 

 notion that after emancipation the colored population would increase 

 less rapidly than before. Up to the very taking of the last census 

 this opinion had taken such hold as to enter as a factor into political 

 calculations. It was expected by leaders of both the great parties 

 that under the new census the South would lose relatively in Congres- 

 sional representation. 



Perhaps the writer may be permitted to state that, about the mid- 

 dle of the last decade (18T5-'T6), he made a leisurely trip through the 

 South, one object of which was to study this subject. He found no 

 physician in the South, whether native or Northern, but believed that 

 the colored race was in a decline and slowly undergoing the process 

 of extinction. It was believed no doubt the result of a dominating 

 idea which preoccupied the mind that births were fewer and deaths 

 more frequent than formerly under slavery. According to the census 

 of 1870, the colored people died off more rapidly than the white, as 

 well in the South as in the North. The report of deaths, though ob- 

 viously imperfect, shows that this greater mortality of the colored 

 takes place among the children. It was found that the cemetery 



