At 5:54 PM -0500 11/9/00, Bryan Logan wrote:

>Wrong.  The regular census schedule for 1850 and 1860 does indeed list free
>African-Americans.  Also, census schedules prior to 1850 (at least the 1840
>and 1830 censuses) list free African-Americans who were heads of household.


The 1840 form had a column to enumerate free white persons in their
various demographic categories, and another column to enumerate "free
persons of color" in the same general format. My point is that the
"free colored" category is decidedly not restricted to
African-Americans.

One census tract in Delaware has been described as having the largest
concentration of free black households in the country on the 1800
census. In fact, less than half the "free colored" heads of household
were black or mulatto. They were Indians, but the modern historians
looking at this record have lumped all nonwhites.

If you are looking at the 1800 census, there were only two choices
for listing free persons: "white" or "colored," which included all
nonwhites, including most of the Indians in the Eastern United
States. This "colored" column has been consistently misinterpreted by
historians as listing free African-Americans. Moreover, I have seen
several examples of Indians listed as white.

The 1860 form had only three choices: white, black or mulatto. There
was no place to list Indians. Therefore, we must assume that Indians
who did not live on reservations were listed in the same category as
black or mulatto, which  historians have mistakenly described as
"Free African-American."

More recently, the form has reflected some racial sensitivity. In
1870, 1880 and 1900, for example, the enumerator had a chance to
list, white, black, mulatto, Chinese, or Indian.


>
>NO census list slaves.

All census forms listed slaves as numbers. That was a constitutional
requirement. The earlier forms listed all categories as numbers,
naming only the head of the household, regardless of his or her race,
with the various categories after that name. When I said "listed," I
alluded to the tabulation, which is what really matters; for
statistical purposes, the identity of an individual is not that
important.

--
Ned Heite  ([log in to unmask])
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