The following statements have respect to the present condition of the free blacks in the United States. They are all derived from authentic sources, and may be relied upon as substantially correct.
I. _Population and Increase of the Free Blacks._
In the following tabular view, which is taken from the census of 1830, and that of 1820, the first column gives the name of the State; the second, the aggregate of the free colored population; and the third, the increase of the same, during the ten years which intervened between 1820 and 1830.
-------------------+---------------+----------- | Free colored | Increase | Pop. in 1830. | 1820-1830. +---------------+----------- Maine, | 1,190 | 261 New Hampshire, | 604 | Vermont, | 881 | Massachusetts, | 7,048 | 308 Rhode Island, | 3,561 | 7 Connecticut, | 8,047 | 177 New York, | 44,870 | 15,591 New Jersey, | 18,303 | 5,843 Pennsylvania, | 37,950 | 7,828 Delaware, | 15,855 | 2,627 Maryland, | 52,938 | 13,208 Virginia, | 47,348 | 10,459 North Carolina, | 19,543 | 4,931 South Carolina, | 7,921 | 1,207 Georgia, | 2,486 | 723 Alabama, | 1,572 | 1,001 Mississippi, | 519 | 61 Louisiana, | 16,710 | 6,234 Tennessee, | 4,555 | 2,008 Kentucky, | 4,917 | 1,158 Ohio, | 9,568 | 4,745 Indiana, | 3,729 | 2,399 Illinois, | 1,637 | 1,180 Missouri, | 569 | 222 Michigan Ter. | 261 | 87 Arkansas Ter. | 141 | 82 Florida Territory, | 844 | Dist. of Columbia, | 6,152 | 2,124 -------------------+---------------+-----------
By this table it appears that the total number of free blacks in 1830, was 319,599. The number in 1820 was, according to Niles’s Register, 233,398, yielding an increase during the intervening ten years, of 86,201. This last statement will be found to vary a little from the sum total of the third column above, owing to discrepancies in the published documents. Blanks are left in the third column opposite to New Hampshire and Vermont, as in those states the numbers, instead of increasing, actually _diminished_. In the latter state they diminished 37, and in the former, 182. Some tables make the diminution in New Hampshire amount to 321. It is worthy of particular inquiry to ascertain the causes of this rapid diminution. It will be perceived that the progress of this population in the middle and some of the southern states, is very rapid, compared with its increase in New England. This is to be attributed to the progress of emancipation. For instance, in New York there were more than 10,000 slaves in 1820, which number was reduced in 1830 to 75. The increase of free blacks in Maryland, and Virginia, is to be attributed partly to the same cause. Their very small increase in the New England States, while the whites are gaining very rapidly, forcibly illustrates the misery of their condition.