Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/805

Rh for the decade from 1860 to 1870, embracing the last three years of slavery and the first seven of freedom:

The drift is mainly toward the two new States, Texas and Florida. A great change has come over the District of Columbia. From standing near the foot of the list in the previous table, it is now at the head. The freedmen found protection and encouragement, with a large demand for such labor as they are qualified to do, and hence they flocked to the District. The border States are worse off than during the previous decade, owing, no doubt, to the war and to the proximity of the old free States, in which the freedmen found more sympathy than among their former neighbors.

The following table shows the colored increase of the principal Northern States for the same decade, and shows what has become of a part of the freedmen:

The aggregate increase in these twelve States was from 217,092 to 327,882, or 51*0 per cent., being 41 per cent, more than the average increase of all the colored in the United States for the same period. Only one State (New York) fell below this average.

The following table shows the increase of the colored population in the former slave States for the last decade, 1870 to 1880: