ABE WE TO BECOME AFBICANIZED? 



H7 



of gain during the past decade were, as nearly as can be known, as 

 follows : For native whites, 31 per cent ; for blacks, not above 25 per 

 cent. 



But all such comparisons, based upon the results of the ninth cen- 

 sus, are utterly worthless. No reliable conclusions regarding the in- 

 crease of negroes can be drawn from a comparison in which these sta- 

 tistics enter. The extent of the omissions can be a matter, within cer- 

 tain wide limits, of conjecture only. The only comparisons which 

 yield results of any value are those made between the statistics of the 

 eighth and tenth censuses. That the former was, to a certain slight 

 extent, incomplete, is doubtless true, especially in regard to the col- 

 ored element, but the omissions were trifling as compared with those 

 of the ninth census. A comparison between the results of the eighth 

 and tenth censuses shows the advantage to be clearly in favor of the 

 native whites, who increased 61 per cent in the twenty years, while 

 the colored element increased but 48 per cent. This great increase 

 of the native whites was effected in spite of the fact that the ranks 

 of the adult males were depleted to the extent of over a million by 

 the casualties of war, which the negroes scarcely felt. 



This relatively greater increase of the whites is sustained by the 

 record during the days of slavery. In but one decennial period since 

 1790 did the negroes increase as rapidly as the whites, and in most 

 cases their increase was far less, as appears in the following table, ex- 

 tracted from Scribner's " Statistical Atlas " : 



It will be noticed that the only period during which the colored 

 element increased faster than the white element was between 1800 and 

 1810, during the continuance of the African slave-trade, which ceased 

 in 1807. It will also be seen that the rate of increase of the negroes, 

 while irregular, shows a marked and rapid decrease a much greater 

 decrease than that of the whites even up to 1850, when immigration 

 from Europe began to make itself felt. 



This decrease of the colored race in proportion to the whites is set 

 forth still more strongly in the following table, quoted from the same 

 work : 



