170 WRIGHT 



to about 4700 and in 1850 to 3687 and in i860, as stated, to 

 3185. As a war measure, President Lincoln issued his proc- 

 lamation of emancipation January i, 1863, but prior thereto 

 and after much discussion, slavery was abolished in the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, April 16, 1862, under an act approved that 

 day. This act appropriated $1,000,000 for the compensation 

 of the owners of slaves. Under this law 3100 slaves were 

 emancipated and their owners received $993,406 as compensa- 

 tion for them. With this double action the negroes of the sur- 

 rounding country of Maryland and Virginia, flocked to Washing- 

 ton, so that the census of 1870 showed a total population of 131,- 

 700, an increase of 56,620, or 75.41 percent, a most remarkable 

 increase; of the total 88,278 were white and 43,422 colored. 

 Contrast this with the colored population ten years before, when it 

 was only 14,317. Here then, was an increase between i860 and 

 1870 of only 27,515 white persons, or 45.28 percent, and an 

 increase of 29,105 colored, or 203.29 percent. During the 

 decade from 1870 to 1880, the white population increased 29,728, 

 or -33.68 percent and the colored only 16,196, or 37.30 per 

 cent, as against 203.29 percent in the previous decade. From 

 1880 to 1890, when the population of the District was 230,392 

 and the total increase 52,768, or 29.71 percent, the white 

 population increased 36,689, or 31.09 percent and the colored 

 population 16,079, ^^ 26.97 percent. 



With these facts in view, it is also interesting to learn the 

 proportions of the white and colored of the total population at 

 different periods, and in this, strangely enough, it is found that 

 the proportion varies very little- In 1800 the colored constituted 

 28.57 percent of the whole population, and in 1810, 33.07 per- 

 cent. This proportion has never been exceeded, except at one 

 census, that of 1880, when it was 33.56 percent. The per- 

 cent was lowest in i860 when it was 19.07. To make a gen- 

 eral statement, therefore, and looking at the percentages at the 

 different censuses it is seen that the colored population has 

 varied around one-third of the whole, where it now stands. 

 Sometimes it has been a little below and sometimes a very little 

 above, but at the present time it is perfectly safe to say that the 

 colored population constitutes one-third of the total population 

 of the District of Columbia. 



