At 05:20 PM 11/9/00 -0500, Ned Heite wrote:

>I must take issue.
>
>There was no place in the census to list African-American population.

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.

>There was a place for the census to list slaves.

NO census list slaves.  Slaves exist in census schedules only as
numbers.  Further, no counts of slaves were contained in the regular census
schedules of 1850 and 1860.  They are list in the "Slave Schedules" for
those years.

><snip>
>There was another place for the census to record other free persons,
>which includes both African Americans and Indians. In other words,
>every antebellum census lumps free blacks, Indians, and mulattoes of
>various types as free persons of color.

Again, not true.  In the 1850 and 1860 censuses ("Regular" schedules), free
persons of color are variously listed as black or mulatto with the letter
"B" or "M" as called for in the "Color" column.

>Beware of any historian who interprets this column on the census form
>as listing African Americans.

I think it would be safe to interpret a "B" designation as being
African-American.

Hope this helps,

Bryan Logan
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