THE NEGRO POPULATION OF NEW YORK CITY
The Negro population of New York City has had a history similar to
that of other Northern cities. Beginning with a small body of slaves,
it has since had its problems growing out of the presence of an
increasing number of Negroes in the midst of the environing white
group. In 1629, The Dutch West India Company pledged itself to furnish
slaves to the Colonists of New Amsterdam.[37] A similar resolution was
passed by the colony council in 1648[38] and by 1664 slavery had
become of sufficient importance to receive legislative regulation in
the Duke of York Code.[39] Both by further importations and by natural
increase the Negro population grew until in 1704 it numbered about
1,500; in 1741 it was estimated at about 2,000, and in 1757 about
3,000. Beginning with the first Federal Census of 1790 there was an
increase shown by each census except those of 1820 for Brooklyn and of
1850 and 1860 for other parts of New York City, mainly Manhattan.
The figures show a striking contrast in growth between Brooklyn and
the other parts of New York City as now constituted, exclusive of
Brooklyn. The former had a comparatively small Negro population until
after 1860, but from 1790 the Negro population although small
increased steadily, except the one decade between 1810 and 1820. This
was a decrease of only 92 or 4.9 per cent of a population less than
2,000. Only one increase, from 1800 to 1810, was less than 13 per
cent. Beginning with 5,915 at the Federal census of 1790, the Negro
population of the other parts of New York City has shown a high per
cent of increase in numbers, above 15 per cent, at eight of the twelve
succeeding censuses, and 8.1 per cent and 5.5 per cent at two others.
The decreases from 1840 to 1850, 13.2 per cent, and from 1850 to 1860,
7.5 per cent, were probably due to the unfavorable sentiment against
the Negroes which arose during the abolition agitation of these
periods and which had its effect on the Negro's movements to and from
the city. The small increase from 1860 to 1870, 5.5 per cent, was very
probably the result of the same causes--of the Civil War disturbances
and the New York Draft riots, which deterred Negroes from coming to
New York City and sent many Negro residents away.[40] The figures for
Manhattan show a similar trend at each census. However, except the
periods noted above, there has been a general trend toward increase in
both Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Negro population has become a smaller
and smaller part of the total population from decade to decade since
1810, but this is because the several streams of foreign immigrants
have been large and not because the increase of the Negro population
has been small.
Table VIII, which follows, shows the growth of the total and the Negro
populations, and brings the full figures to view:
TABLE VIII. TOTAL AND NEGRO POPULATION OF NEW YORK CITY, AS AT PRESENT
CONSTITUTED, 1704-1910.[A]
-----+--------------------------------++--------------------------------
| New York City, exclusive of ||
| Brooklyn. || Brooklyn.
-----+----------------+---------------++----------------+---------------
| | Increase of || | Increase of
Year.| Population. | Negro || Population. | Negro
| | population. || | population.
-----+---------+------+-------+-------++---------+------+-------+-------
| | | | Per || |Negro.| | Per
| Total. |Negro.|Number.| cent || Total. | [B] |Number.| cent
-----+---------+------+-------+-------++---------+------+-------+-------
1704 | -- | 1,500| -- | -- || -- | -- | -- | --
1741 | -- | 2,000| 500|33.3 || -- | -- | -- | --
1757 | -- | 3,000| 1,000|50.0 || -- | -- | -- | --
1790 | 44,906| 5,915| 2,915|97.2 || 4,495| 1,478| -- | --
1800 | 73,476| 8,626| 2,711|45.9 || 5,740| 1,811| 333|25.5
1810 | 111,431|12,116| 3,490|40.4 || 8,303| 1,853| 42| 2.3
1820 | 140,869|13,100| 984| 8.1 || 11,187| 1,761| 92| 4.9[C]
1830 | 221,743|16,082| 2,982|22.8 || 20,535| 2,007| 246|13.9
1840 | 343,501|18,595| 2,573|15.6 || 47,613| 2,846| 839|41.8
1850 | 557,233|16,131| 2,464|13.2[C]|| 138,882| 4,065| 1,219|42.8
1860 | 895,657|14,927| 1,204| 7.5[C]|| 279,122| 4,999| 934|22.9
1870 |1,058,182|15,755| 828| 5.5 || 419,921| 5,653| 654|13.1
1880 |1,312,203|22,496| 6,741|42.8 || 599,495| 9,153| 3,500|61.9
1890 |1,668,867|26,330| 3,834|17.0 || 838,547|11,307| 2,154|23.5
1900 |2,270,620|42,299| 15,969|60.6 ||1,166,582|18,367| 7,060|62.5
1910 |3,132,532|69,700| 27,403|64.8 ||1,634,351|22,702| 4,335|23.6
-----+---------+------+-------+-------++---------+------+-------+-------
[A] Figures 1704-1757 from Du Bois, _Notes_, _etc._, p. 1.
[B] Negro not reported separately 1790 to 1850; includes
"slaves" and all other "Free Colored" which does not involve
serious error in the earlier censuses.
Census figures 1790-1910 are from the latest revisions of the
Bureau of the Census. Figures for same area, outside of
Manhattan and Brooklyn, are estimates of censuses 1790-1890.
Figures for 1900 and 1910 are exact.
[C] Decrease.
To summarize the point, while the Negro population has become a
smaller relative part of the total population each decade since 1810,
it has shown a decided trend toward a large actual increase.
The distribution of the Negro population has varied with its increase
and with the growth of the city. But almost from the beginning,
probably the environing white group has segregated the Negroes into
separate neighborhoods. The figures available for Brooklyn do not
permit a positive inference, but in Manhattan, while the areas
populated by Negroes have shifted somewhat from decade to decade,
there have been distinctively Colored sections since 1800.[41]
An idea of this segregation is shown in the fact that in 1900, 80.9
per cent of all the Negro population of Manhattan was contained within
12 out of 35 Assembly Districts and that in 1890 seven wards of
Manhattan contained fully five-sixths of the Negro population of the
Borough. The largest number of Negroes, 13.8 per cent of the total
number, were living, in 1900, in the Nineteenth Assembly District with
numbers approximating this in the Eleventh, which contained 10.4 per
cent, the Twenty-seventh, which had 9.2 per cent, and the
Twenty-third, which had 8.7 per cent of the Negro population. The
Negro population for Manhattan, 36,246, was distributed in 1900 by
assembly districts as is shown in Table IX (p. 49).
These figures give a clear idea of the segregated character of the
Negro population and show something of its present location. There has
been a decided shifting from the part of Manhattan between
Twenty-fifth, Forty-second streets, Sixth and Eighth avenues, and into
Harlem between One Hundred and Thirtieth, One Hundred and Fortieth
streets, Fifth and Eighth avenues during the past five years as
business interests have been taking possession of the zone around the
new Pennsylvania Railway Station, between Thirty-second and
Thirty-third streets. But as the Negroes have moved into blocks in
Harlem, the whites have moved out.
TABLE IX. DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION BY ASSEMBLY DISTRICTS OF
MANHATTAN, 1900.
-----------------------------+-------------+---------------
| Negro | Per cent of
Assembly District. | population. | total.
-----------------------------+-------------+---------------
5th Assembly District | 1,378 | 3.8
9th Assembly District | 1,673 | 4.6
11th Assembly District | 3,756 | 10.4
13th Assembly District | 2,584 | 7.1
17th Assembly District | 1,214 | 3.4
19th Assembly District | 4,982 | 13.8
21st Assembly District | 1,135 | 3.1
23rd Assembly District | 3,169 | 8.7
25th Assembly District | 2,950 | 8.1
27th Assembly District | 3,318 | 9.2
31st Assembly District | 1,483 | 4.1
32nd Assembly District | 1,680 | 4.6
All other Districts | 6,924 | 19.1
-----------------------------+-------------+--------------
Total | 36,246 | 100.
-----------------------------+-------------+---------------
The exact character and extent of the segregation of the Negro
population may be clearly seen from diagrams of this Harlem district,
and of the "San Juan Hill" district in the West Sixties, based upon
the latest figures of the Census of 1910. This is given in Diagrams
III and IV (pp. 50-51)[42]
With such a distribution of the clearly segregated Negro population,
the representative character of the 2,500 families chosen for closer
study becomes evident. These families, from figures based upon the
original returns of the New York State Census of 1905, were chosen
from the Eleventh, the Nineteenth, the Twenty-third, and the
Thirty-first districts. The last district was taken in preference to
several which contained larger numbers, because it included certain
streets that were typical of the Harlem section.
[Illustration: Diagram III:
DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION OF HARLEM
Corrected To June 1911]
[Illustration: Diagram IV:
DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGRO POPULATION ON "SAN JUAN HILL"]
In all 2,639 families were tabulated. Of these 95 were excluded
because the heads of these families were of the professional or
business classes, 37 because they were too incompletely reported, and
7 because the heads were white. This reduced the number to 2,500
families, which consisted of 9,788 persons, exclusive of 17 white
members of these families. The data from the State Census schedules of
enumerators were tabulated in regular order as reported by them for
each block or part of block for the Negro families that were
designated as living in that street or block.
The families studied were from the following territory: Within the
Eleventh Assembly District, the area bounded by Thirtieth and
Thirty-eighth streets, Seventh and Tenth avenues; within the
Nineteenth Assembly District, Sixty-first, Sixty-second, and
Sixty-third streets, between Amsterdam and Eleventh avenues, commonly
called "San Juan Hill;" within the Twenty-third and Thirty-first
Assembly Districts, One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and
Thirty-third streets between Eighth and St. Nicholas avenues, and One
Hundred and Thirty-fourth and One Hundred and Thirty-fifth streets
between Fifth and Seventh avenues. These three segregated
neighborhoods in 1905 may be roughly characterized as follows: The
first was probably in the lowest grade of social condition; the second
did not show a decidedly predominant type, but ranged from the middle
grade toward the more advanced; the third was the most advanced.
A comparison in detail of the distribution by assembly districts of
the total Negro population and of the 2,500 selected families shows
also that the latter are representative of the several neighborhoods
and of the total population. Table X shows the distribution by
Assembly Districts of the 2,500 families for comparison with Table IX
above, which gave the total Negro population of Manhattan and its
distribution.
TABLE X. DISTRIBUTION BY ASSEMBLY DISTRICTS OF 2,500 NEGRO FAMILIES,
STATE CENSUS, 1905.
--------------------+------------------+------------------
Assembly District. | No. of families. | No. of persons.
--------------------+------------------+------------------
Eleventh | 927 | 3,329
Nineteenth | 1,018 | 4,024
Twenty-third | 326 | 1,581
Thirty-first | 229 | 854
--------------------+------------------+------------------
Total | 2,500 | 9,788
--------------------+------------------+------------------
In addition to the data of the State Census of 1905, a personal
canvass was made in 1909 of 73 families in their homes, having a total
of 212 persons. To these were added 153 individuals at one of the
evening schools of the city, a total of 365 persons. The localities
within which these 365 people lived corresponded in the main to the
location of the 2,500 families taken from the State Census of 1905;
that is, between Twenty-fifth, Forty-fifth streets, Fifth and Eighth
Avenues; Fifty-third, Sixty-fifth streets, west of Sixth Avenue and
between One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and Thirty-sixth
streets, Fifth and Seventh Avenues.
To sum up: The assembly districts chosen and the number of families
and individuals tabulated from each district are such as to give a
fairly accurate description of the clearly segregated wage-earning
Negro population of the districts. The study, then, is representative
of about one-fourth of the Negro population of Manhattan in 1905, and
is so distributed as to be reasonably conclusive for the wage-earning
element of the whole Negro population.
The next question is the composition of this toiling Negro population.
The general condition of the wage-earning element of this group will
now, therefore, engage our attention.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] _New York Colonial Doc._, i, 553.
[38] O'Callaghan, _Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands, 1637-1674_,
p. 81.
[39] DuBois, _Some Notes on Negroes of New York City_, p. 5.
[40] The writer has testimony of contemporary witnesses of these
disturbances.
[41] _Vide_ DuBois, _Notes_, _etc._, p. 1.
[42] Diagrams III and IV were made by Mr. Eugene K. Jones, Field
Secretary of the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes.