Negro

a person of the black race. The native home of the negro is Central Africa. Not all Africans are negroes. The Sahara and the country to the north and east of it are peopled by dark representatives of the white race. The Hottentots of southern Africa are not considered negroes proper. There are supposed to be in all about 175,000,000 negroes or Ethiopians, as they are called sometimes. They were introduced as slaves into northern Africa, the southern United States, Nicaragua, the West Indies, and Brazil. The physical characteristics of the typical negro are interesting. The frame is of moderate height, tilted somewhat forward. The arm is long, in some individuals reaching the kneepan; the leg is thin; the foot is broad and flat, with a low instep; the great toe is flexible; the heel is long and is known as the "lark heel." The bones of the head are thick and strong. The brain is small, averaging about ten ounces less than that of the white man. The skin is soft, cool, and velvety, apparently enabling the negro to withstand a greater degree of heat than is possible for the white man. The complexion varies from a deep brown to a black. The pigments of the skin do not differ from those of a white man except that there is a greater accumulation of dark pigment. A peculiar odor is, however, noticeable. The hair is short, black, and curly. The eye is large and full. The iris is black; the surrounding sclerotic coat somewhat yellowish. The nose is short and broad. The lips are thick and turned somewhat outward, showing the inner surface.

According to the last United States census there were 8,840,789 negroes in this country. The increase during the preceding ten years was eighteen per cent; that of the whites was twenty-one per cent. The state having the largest negro population in the census year was Georgia, almost equal to the white population, 46.7 per cent of the whole. The negroes outnumbered the whites in Mississippi with 58.5 per cent of the total, and in South Carolina with 58.4 per cent. Of minor civil divisions the maximum density of negro population was recorded in Issaquena county, Mississippi, with 94 per cent; in nine other counties in the south the percentage lay above 88. The native negro population according to the twelfth census of the United States, not including 20,336 foreign born, was distributed as follows:

It is thought that about one-third show at least a trace of white blood. The geographical center of the negro population of the United States is drifting westward. During the past 100 years it has traveled from Virginia to its present position--a point in DeKalb County in northeastern Alabama.

About 1829 most of the slaveholding states passed laws making it a crime punishable by fine, whipping, or imprisonment to teach a colored person to read or to write. The education of the colored race, therefore, cannot be said to have begun before the close of the Civil War. When it is considered that the Southern States were impoverished by the war, and that they were utterly without teachers for the colored people, it must be admitted that they have met the situation courageously. Separate schools for colored children have been established very generally. The total number of negro children in attendance in separate schools is about a million and a half. About one-fifth of the total amount expended for education in the Southern States is devoted to colored schools. According to the census report already quoted over half of the negroes old enough to vote are now able to read and to sign their names. The efforts of the various states have been supplemented by private gifts.

The negroes of the United States are the descendants of slaves. It is probable that there is not a single negro in the Union who migrated to this country of his own free will. According to the report mentioned, eleven negroes out of a thousand are members of some profession; 572 are engaged in agriculture; 47 in trade and transportation; 56 in manufacturing; and 314 in domestic and personal service. There were 22,318 negro carpenters and 17,480 barbers. Although negro farmers began work for themselves under the most adverse circumstances at the close of the Civil War they now own farm property valued at $250,000,000. As the farms are chiefly in the South, their principal crops are corn, tobacco, sweet potatoes, rice, and cotton.

Statistics for the United States are:

See Peabody; Slater; Tuskegee; Hampton; Douglass; Freedman'S Bureau; Emancipation Proclamation; Contraband; Washington; Dunbar