Negro population PERCENT MULATTO TO POPULATION 1900 1890 1870 1860 1850 7,474,040 4,880,009 4,441,830 3,638,808 1,132,060 548,049 588,363 405,751 25 15.2 12 13 11.2 The census reporters experienced so much difficulty in trying to distinguish the mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, etc., from whites that in 1900 they gave it up in discouragement. It can, therefore, be only estimated that one-fourth of the negro population of the country bear evidence of an admixture of blood. This admixture was found by the enumerators to be more prevalent in sections where the proportion of negroes to whites is smallest, and least prevalent where the proportion of negroes to whites is largest. As one passes from the great cotton-growing states between South Carolina and Texas toward the north, the proportion of mulattoes among the negroes as a rule increases. Rank of States and Territories in order of increasing per cent mulatto in total negro population 1890, 1870, 1860 and 1850: Before the Civil War the field hands in the cotton-growing regions of the South associated with the whites much less intimately than the house servants, and the latter class much more frequently than the former included a perceptible strain of white blood. Away from the cottongrowing area the difference was less, but in the border states no small proportion of the slaves in the cities, many of them belonging to the class of household slaves, were infused with white blood. No legal intermarriages between the races existed during slavery times, and yet there was a widespread admixture of blood. Concubinage was a common practice. A mulatto was worth more money than a full-blood negro, because he was more intelligent. He could learn more readily and do more complicated work. He was always sought for at the slave sales by traders, and consequently as many mulatto children as possible were raised. They were at that time infused with some of the best blood of the South, hence the intelligence of some of the foremost of their race. It is to this custom that the mulattoes owe their origin. The mulattoes thus raised have for the most part been educated by their white fathers. Wilberforce College, the oldest negro institution of learning in the United States, founded in 1856, was largely supported in slavery times by southern white men who were fathers of mulatto children. Those practices of slavery times have not ceased yet. Intermarriage between the two races is forbidden by law in all of the southern states, and also the following northern and western states: Delaware, Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, California and Oregon. In all of the remaining northern and western states intermarriage is lawful. Such laws have meant little or nothing so far as they affect the problem of amalgamation. In Delaware, Maryland and the Virginias there are not a few white men living with mulatto women, chiefly in rural districts, and raising families unmolested. Occasionally, though very rarely, white women thus make homes for negro men. The most pitiful case of this kind that has ever been brought to my attention is in Harford county, Maryland. A white girl was rescued from drowning by a full-blooded negro, and the latter took advantage of her gratitude at the time and obtained her consent to live with him. He was a day laborer a part of the time and fished or did nothing the remainder of the time. They now have fourteen children, varying in color from light yellow to dark brown, with a varying combination of white and negro features. They live in a two-room house eight miles from the nearest railroad station, and about a mile from the nearest public road. She never goes to town or to call on a neighbor, and when anyone calls at the house she either remains out of sight or draws a bonnet down over her eyes. Her folks have frequently asked her to return to them, but she says she doesn't want to leave the children. While such cases of white women living with negro men are the extreme exception, the negro women as a rule exert every possible influence to induce white men to cohabit with them. I have known them to make repeated advances to business men and college boys with such intentions. A college student of a southern college who fed some horses morning and evening for my neighbor noticed the negro servant girl come out to the barn almost every time he went there for over two months. He told me he would shoot her rather than touch her. Many men, however, who have been raised in the South or near Indian reservations in the West have become so accustomed to practices that have existed in those sections ever since the advent of the negro to our country, or the associations of the cowboys with Indian women, that they do not regard it as do the people of other sections-barbarous. In the states south of the Virginias a custom called "miscegenation," a system of concubinage, is very prevalent in the cities. Many white men, sometimes prominent in business, have mulatto as well as white families. The following statement by Rev. J. A. Rice, of the Court Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama, represents an average condition in the majority of the large cities of the south. Dr. Rice made this statement in his pulpit about a year ago: "There are in the city of Montgomery about four hundred negro women supported by white men." This does not represent a condition of mere vice. Most of these women are comfortably provided for and have families of children. Almost invariably the negro concubines of white men are received in the negro churches and among the negroes generally with honor. They are the most intelligent of negro women, have the best homes, and more money to contribute to charitable purposes. They are proud of their light-colored children, and generally consider themselves more fortunate than their relatives who have black children and less money to spend. The better classes in several states have begun to organize against the present practice of concubinage. At Francisville, Louisiana, in May, 1907, a meeting was called to organize against what one of the speakers, Mr. Wickliffe, termed the "yellow peril" of the South. He said, in part: "Everyone familiar with conditions in our midst knows that the enormous increase in persons of mixed blood is due to men of the white race openly keeping negro women as concubines." About this time another similar meeting was held at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and anti-miscegenation leagues formed at each place. The class of white men who live with or retain negro concubines at the present time are as a whole of a lower class than those of slavery times, or even five years ago. As the practice is abandoned by the better classes, the mulatto offspring are naturally of a lower sort. The home life of the masses of negroes is so primitive that in their crowded condition privacy and decency are almost unknown. The more comely and intelligent negro girls are therefore a prey not only for white men, but, like all of their sex, are more of a prey for men of their own race. From such circumstances and examples it is no wonder that the negroes as soon as they were free and placed on a social equality began to assault white women. The only difference now between the relations of the men of both races to the women of their opposite race is that in one practice, “miscegenation," harmony exists, and there is more enthusiasm shown on the part of the negro women than the white men; while the other practice, assault and rape, embodies the most loathsome crime. Although no excuse can be offered for concubinage in any form, the concubines are treated like queens as compared with the barbarous, dastardly, beastly, fiendish manner in which the negro men assault pure, innocent white girls at almost every opportunity. The southern white farmers of many rural districts leave their houses with apprehension in the morning, and thank Providence when they return from their work in the evening to find all well with the women folks of their home. Many of them either carry revolvers or keep a shotgun hanging over the door. In New Orleans and vicinity the Frenchmen and negro women have introduced the so-called creole negro class (French negroes), which constitutes a majority of the negro population of that city. Besides English, they speak a French dialect. From these two classes the large majority of prisoners of the jails and penitentiary are drawn. These Frenchmen have for the most part only common names. Those having long names similar to that of Helie de Sagan, Boni de Castellane, Alfonso Emanuel Bernard, Gaston de Luines d'Ailly, Duc de Picquigny, etc., frequently marry American girls who have inherited more money than brains. If these girls could see their future relatives in the creole role in New Orleans they might think twice before marrying such relics of royalty. The Mayor of New Orleans recently said: "If it were not for the negroes and creoles we officers would have nothing to do; we would be out of a job." It has become proverbial that New Orleans practices the Ten Commandments with the "nots" omitted. It is a common occurrence there for an officer to shoot a negro for resisting arrest. I once saw this done in St. Louis. A negro merely saw a policeman coming and ran down an alley. The policeman told him to halt, and, as he continued to run, the policeman shot him. A young mulatto, speaking on the subject recently, said: "They have given us their blood, and now they resent our response to the same ambitions that they have. They have given us fighting blood and expect us not to struggle." While many of the mulattoes hold themselves aloof from the black negroes, marry only among themselves, and in many cities through the North and South have separate churches, yet as a whole they do not care to associate with the whites, but rather form an intermediate class. This attitude is due to the fact that they are ostracised from white society if even a trace of negro blood is perceptible. The most remarkable instance of this kind on record is that of Miss Cecelia Johnson, who, in 1906, was a leader in her class in the Chicago University, a member of the Pi Delta Phi Society and president of the Englewood House, an exclusive girls' club. When it became known that she possessed negro blood she was shunned by most of her former white friends. A few years ago a dark-complected, black-eyed girl graduated from Vassar College, and by merest incident it was discovered at commencement that she was part negro. Judge Robert H. Terrell, of the subdistrict court, District of Columbia, and his wife, a member of the school board of Washington, contain almost an imperceptible inkling of negro blood. While on a recent tour through Virginia I saw three white children coming from a negro school with colored children. I afterwards saw their parents, and could only detect a trace of negro blood in their father. Their mother, although an octoroon, would never be suspicioned as other than white. Their children, however, although as white as caucasians, were compelled to attend the negro school. And so I might enumerate hundreds of similar cases if space would permit. This class of people are placed in the most critical social strata imaginable-neither black nor white, and yet both. Like Booker T. Washington and Professor DuBois, they cling to the negro side because of the prejudice that white people have forced upon them. In case of race riot, however, the mulattoes, siding with negroes, lending keener wits and higher intelligence, cause more trouble. Occasionally some of the octoroons, or those containing still less negro blood, "go over to white," or "cross the line," and pass for white |