90 UNITED-STATES - MISCEI,I,ANEOUS 



Occupations of Negroes. 



Agricultural Pursuits 2,143,154 



Domestic and Personal Ser\dce 1,317,859 



Trade and Transportation 208,989 



Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits . 275,116 



More than half the wage earning negroes are therefore engaged in 

 agriculture. They form about 20 % of the entire agricultural population of 

 the United States, but the proportion is far larger when only the Southern 

 States are considered, especially in the Black Belt (i) where the negro 

 population is densest. Of 9,827,763 negroes in the United States (the total 

 population of the Union being 93,402,151), 8,749,427 are to be found in the 

 South (1910), where in some counties, they form 25 % of the total 

 population and in certain districts as much as 90 %. More than half 

 the farms of South Carohna, Mississippi and I^ouisiana and Uttle less than 

 half of those of Alabama and Georgia are worked by negroes. 



In the last ten years (1900-1910), the number of negro farmers in- 

 creased to a comparatively larger extent than that of the whites ; in fact in 

 fifteen states in the South the former increased 19.9 % that is from 739,835 

 to 887,691, while the corresponding increase for the latter was only 17 %, 

 that is from 1,870,600 to 2,191,705. 



The negroes of the United States, therefore, remain principally an 

 agricultural class. 



§ 2. The NEGROES AS FARM I,.\BOURERS. 



Before the aboUtion of Slavery, the agricultural labourers of the South- 

 ern States were, as already said, almost exclusively negroes. The plant- 

 ation system then predominant, was characterized b}^ the cultivation of 

 large areas and the employment of many labourers. Of these very great 

 skill was not demanded ; for as a rule there was no regular rotation of crops 

 and from year to year the same plant was cultivated (cotton, sugar cane, 

 rice, indigo). On the other hand, the labourer had to be endowed to a high 

 degree with the physical strength for prolonged labour ip a semi-tropical 

 chmate and also, in view of the size of the farms, to be subjected to rigid 

 discipUne. The African slaves answered these requirements: they were 

 therefore imported in large quantities, at first openly, and aftenvards clan- 

 destinely, when the laws of various states had forbidden the importation. 



(i) Extending from the coa.5t of South Carolina to the States of the Gulf of Mexico 



