374 POPULATION. 



States. Thus, in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, 

 New Jersey and Pennsylvania, there were, in 1850, 108,100 females to 

 100,000 males in the negro population of these Stajtes ; and in 1880, the 

 number is 108,419 females to each 100,000 negro males, 



The centre of the negro population of the United States lies near the 

 84 meridian, between the 32 and 33 parallel north latitude, a few miles to 

 southeast of Macon, Georgia. On the same meridian, but some 600 miles 

 to the north, lies the centre of the foreign born population of the United 

 States, between the cities of Toledo and Detroit. The foreign born ex- 

 ceeds the negro population by only about 100,000, each being in the neigh- 

 borhood of 6| millions. On the same meridian again, and between the 

 two centres named, is found at a point in Kentucky, a short distance 

 southwest of Cincinnati, the centre of the aggregate j^opulation of the 

 United States ; since 1790 this centre has moved westward from the city 

 of Baltimore along the 39 parallel of latitude, a distance of 457 miles. 

 The wide divergence of these two well marked and nearly equal streams 

 of population, the European and the African, while making the same pro- 

 gress westward during so considerable a period of time, might naturally be 

 taken to indicate that it was a result of natural and insurmountable cli- 

 matic and geographical conditions. Between these poles the greater prox- 

 imity by 200 miles of the aggregate population to the northern one, in 

 consequence of the sympathy of Christendom with the European immi- 

 grants, and race prejudice against the African, have confirmed this 

 plausible but superficial view, and given rise to many wide spread and 

 erroneous impressions, regarding the unsuitableness of the Southern 

 section of the United States as a home for the Caucasian race. It 

 has come to be regarded as a low, wet, marshy, malarial region, fitted 

 for the negro and cotton culture, and owing to these, as it were acci- 

 dental features, its chief importance. It should be remembered, how- 

 ever, that before the advent of negroes, and long before any importance 

 attached to cotton, wealthy Englishmen, with the whole country open 

 to them, well informed as to its climate and resources, after two centuries 

 of explorations, made choice of South Carolina as the locality best 

 adajjted for the material development of an English colony. The 

 Northern and Middle States were colonized by political and religious 

 refugees, or by persons of peculiar social views. The South was chosen as 

 a land of promise for those who sought to increase their fortunes, and es- 

 tablish a people under conditions most favorable for their development. 

 This is not the place to discuss the adventitious circumstances which have 

 favored the mis-impressions here referred to ; such, for instance, as the 

 changes in the art of navigation, which opened the most direct and speedy 

 communication between the nearest points of Europe and America, in 



