(0 H B ?Si3505 W D4 ^ o ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES BY FRANKLIN BOWDITCH DEXTER. ESTIMATES OE POPULATION AMERICAN COLONIES [From the Report of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, presented at the annual meeting held in worcester, October 21, 1887.] By franklin BOWDITCH DEXTER. ^^^orce^ter, Pa^'^., m. ^. g^. PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, No. 311 Main Street. 1887. • • • • J • * •• • • • • » • • « • •• ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES. [The Annual Report of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, submitted October 21, 1887, comprises the customary review of the progress of the Society, since the last meeting, with notices of deceased members, and continues as follows : — ] In accordance with custom the member of the Council- to whom is entrusted the duty of formulating their Report is permitted to present therewith a discussion of some subject of general historical interest, for which he is more directly responsible. The present writer offers, therefore, some observations on the Estimates of Population in the Ameri- can Colonies. I am not aware that any attempt has been made to dis- cuss in a connected way the scattered estimates of the num- bers of inhabitants from time to time in the several colonies which afterwards became the United States of America. The materials at command are so meagre as to discourage inquiry, but a conviction that a beginning should be made in the arrangement of the data we have, and a hope of opening the way for useful deductions, have moved me to offer this study. Certain elements of difficulty are inseparable from the attempt. In America, under the colonial regime, there was but little systematic collection by authority of trustworthy population-statistics. For long periods, in most of the colonies, there was an utter dearth of even the pretence of knowledge ; Avhile such estimates as we have, there is rea- son to suspect, are often intentionally misleading, when officials, on the one hand of the boastful, or on the other hand of the timid type, thought to serve some interest by exaggeration or by understatement. In many of the returns. moreover, there is a failure to specify whether certain classes of the community, as negroes and Indians, are included; often, however, such uncertainty vanishes by an inspection of the figures. Other elements of vagueness and of per- plexity will suggest themselves, as we consider the field in detail. Taking the colonies in the usual geographical order, the first is the Province of New Hampshire, in which there are no peculiarities or extraordinary variations to be noted, but a tolerably uniform though slow rate of increase. The separate history of the district is merged from 1641 of 1679 in that of Massachusetts Bay; and for the earliest period, that prior to the protectorate of Massachusetts, our associate. Col. Albert H. Hoyt, in a paper contributed to our Proceedings,^ estimates that *'the entire population * * * did not much exceed, if it equalled, one thousand souls." The figure suggested is, I think, too large, in com- parison with the earliest oflScial basis of calculation, namely, the 209 qualified voters at the date of the first General Assembly after the erection of New Hampshire into a Royal Province.^ True, the list of voters in 1680 by no means embraced the whole male population of voting age ; but so far as it gives any clue, it implies less than 1,000 inhabit- ants in 1641, and less than the 4,000 and the 6,000 which Mr. Bancroft assigns to these towns in 1675 and 1689, respectively.^ The first contemporaneous figures are those in a Report by the Lords of Trade on the American Plantations in 1721, to the effect that the number of people on Governor Shute's arrival in 1716 was computed at 9,000, and the increase up to the last hearing was about 500.^ Between this testimony lApril, 1876, 91. 2 Belknap's Hist., ed. Farmer, i., 91. 3 Hist. U. S., i., 383, 608; all references to Bancroft are to the last revision, unless otherwise stated. 4 Documents relating to Colonial Hist, of N. Y., v., 595, and Palfrey's Hist, of N. E., iv., 457. Cf . a similar estimate in Chalmers's Hist, of Revolt. and the first census a valuable hint comes from the state- ment of John Farmer, chief of New Hampshire antiquaries, that the ratable inhabitants in 1732 were under 3,000,^ NOTK. The side-numerals in this and following wood-cuts indicate 100,000, 200,000, etc. 141,885. oopoooooo ^ implying a total of from 12 to 13,000. Another local authority preserves the polling list in 1761,^ which indi- cates about 38,000 inhabitants ; while the first attempt at actual enumeration was a census, six years later, gathered from the returns of the selectmen, and amounting to 52,700 souls, -^ which points to a somewhat more rapid growth than before. A second Provincial census, after another six years* interval, yielded over 72,000,^ and a less complete return obtained for the State Convention of 1775 assigned a total of about 81,000,^ or double the number in the Province some thirteen years before. Natural growth and the recuperation after the war brought these figures up to 12,946; in Holmes's Annals, 2d ed., ii., 539. Dr. Wm. Douglass (in his Sum- mary, ii., 180) estimates 24,000 in 1742, which is credible; notice should be taken of the gain of territory in 1740 from Massachusetts. British officials esti- mated the white inhabitants in 1749 at 30,000 (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). Hurnaby's Travels (2d ed., 151) stated about 40,000 in 1759. 29,146 (Rev. Samuel Langdon,in Holmes's Annals, ii., 540). 3 Provincial Papers of N. H., vii., 170. Bancroft's estimate (ii., 38) of 50,000 whites in 1754 is excessive, and still more so Winsor's (Narrative and Critical Hist, of Amer., V, 151), taken from the Board of Trade's figures, 75,000 in 1755, quoted by Bancroft in early editions (iv., 128-9) , but discarded by him later. 4 72,092 (Provincial Papers of N. H., x., 625-36). 5 Provincial Papers of N. H., vii., 780-81. This return was made to correct the wild estimate of Congress, vvliich was in one form 102,000, exclusive of slaves, or as otherwise reported (John Adams's Works, vii., 302) 150,000. 95,000^ in 1786, and to 141,885 in 1790. None of these estimates include the Vermont towns, to which New Hamp- shire so long hiid claim, and which by 1790 rivalled her own numbers of ten years before. In the case of Massachusetts the population-curve can be more confidently traced. The slow and painful growth of Plymouth Colony had brought together "near 300" per- sons^ in 1630, when Boston v^as founded ; while in two years after that date the plantation at the Bay had expanded to about 2,000.3 An early basis for calculation is the apportionment of troops for the New England Confederacy in 1(J43, when the quota of Massachusetts Bay was five times that of Plymouth, in which colony there were then 627 males of military age.^ The population is usually computed as from four and a half to five and a half times the number of militia. This yields as a probable total in 1643 for Massa- chusetts (including Plymouth, but not the New Hampshire towns) from 16,000 to 17,000 souls; Dr. Palfrey prefers the hiirher figure,^ but the lower is the safer liniit.^ The full stream of immigration w^hich had fed hitherto the Bay Colony, ceased after 1640, when Massachusetts contained probably as many people as the rest of British America ; and some retardation of the rate of increase, unequalled in the early stages of any other colony, except Pennsylvania, then set in. For sixty years, however, we have no direct estimates of any value, and must for the interval fall back on such computations as the important 195,755 (Provincial Papers, x., 689). 2 Patent to Bradford. Cf . Lowell Inst. Lectures on Early Hist, of Mass., 169. 3 T. Wiggin's Letter in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 3d series, viii., 322. 4Palfrey'sHist.,ii., 6. 5ii., 5. 6 Intermediate estimates are:— for 1635, Plymouth, 500 (Palfrey, i., 166), and Massachusetts Bay, nearly or quite 5,000 (Rev. Henry M. Dexter's Koger Williams, 41) ; for 1636, 3,000, or at most, 4,000 ((i. B. Emerson, in Lowell Inst. Lectures on Hist, of Mass., 465) ; for 1637, Plymouth, 549, and Massachu- setts Bay, 7,912 (J. B. Felt, in Collections of Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 139) ; for 1639, the Bay, 8,592 {do.). 6 series prepared by our lute associate, Dr. Joseph B. Felt, in 1815, for the American Statistical Association,^ largely on the basis of militia rolls. Judged by his careful figures, Dr, Palfrey^ is substantially correct in assigning 30,000 to Massachusetts (including the new Province of Maine, as well as New Hampshire and Plymouth) in 1665, as also Mr. Bancroft- in assigning 37,000 to the same territory at the outbreak of Philip's war.^ Mr. Bancroft's next esti- mate, at the Revolution of 1689,"^ of 44,000 for Massachu- setts, with Plymouth and Maine, is an over-cautious deduc- tion from the roll of the militia f on the other hand. Dr. Palfrey's hesitating suggestion^ of 60,000 as the total on the change of government in 1692, is slightly excessive. The Board of Trade's Report in 1721^ gives a new basis for calculation, computing about 94,000 for Massachusetts ; and though Dr. Palfrey^ styles this a "heedless exaggera- tion," his criticism may be criticised in turn as too sweep- ing.^ The next evidence of importances^ comes from the rate list of 1735, which registered 53,427 taxable polls. 1 Collections of the Association, i., pt. 2. 2 Hist., iii., 35. Felt estimates Massachusetts (includln;^ Plymouth, Maine and New Hampshire) at 28,777 in 1665. Capt. Edward Johnson's assumption of near 80,000 in New England in 1661 (Wonder Working Piovidence, ed. Poole, cxxiv-vi.), though approved by Doyle, seems to me quite impossible. 3i.,383. 4The extravagant misrepresentations of Cartwright in 1665 (30,000 militia), and of Randolph in 1676 (150,000 souls), are sufficiently exposed in Palfrey's Hist., iii., 30. Baylies (Hist, of Plymouth Colony, iii., 191) says that in 1676 one estimate was for Massachusetts 28,750 souls, and for Plymouth 7,500. 5i.,60S. 6 Reported by Sir Edmund Andros in 1690 as 8,413. Cf. Palfrey, iv., 136. 7iv., 136. Winsor's Hist, of America (v. 92) gives 60—100,000 as the allowable range of estimates for this date. Felt (Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 142) computes 62,724 for 1695. Humphreys (Hist. Account of S. P. G., 42) writes in 1701, " in Boston and Piscataway Government there are about 80,000 souls." 8 Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 597. 9iv.,387. 10 The same Report of the Board of Trade reckons the militia in 1718 at 14,925 men, besides 300 officers and 800 exempts, 16,025 in all; the population, then, might well be over 85,000. 11 An anonymous tract of 1731, quoted in Anderson's Hist, of Commerce, iii., 172, credits Massachusetts with *' at least 120,000 white inhabitants." that is, of white citizens (both male and female) aged six- teen years and upwards, besides a total of 2,600 blacks. ^^ The accepted ratio of such polls to the population is that of I to 4 ; with a necessary, allowance for evasions of the poll, a result of 145,000 and over is justified. A similar but less exact report for 1742^ gives at least 165,000 inhabit- ants, substantially the same as the estimate for nine years later, furnished by Governor Pownall,^ who calls attention to "a great depopulation by small-pox and war," which had intervened ; to which causes of retardation might have been added the loss of eight thriving towns transferred in this interval to Rhode Island and Connecticut, in the straififhtenino- of boundaries. With these serious drawbacks it is likely that Mr. Winsor's estimate'* of 200,000 for 1755 is nearer the truth than Mr. Bancroft's^ of 207,000 whites and 4,000 or 5,000 negroes in 1754. In 1764 we reach the first Provincial Census, the returns of which, though not officially preserved, seem to have shown a total of 270,000 and upwards,^ and so mark the era of most vio^orous «rrowth before the Revolution. From lAmer. Statist. Assoc, i., 142, quoting Hist, of Brit. Dominions in N. America (publislied 1773) ; the same authorities estimate the militia in 1747 at 30,000, which would give a total of over 190,000,— probably too large. 2 Douglass's Summary, ii., 180. 3 Memorial to Sovereigns of Europe (1780), 58; probably he derived his figures from the polling-list. 4 Hist, of Amer., v., 151, from the Board of Trade's Report, in Bancroft's early editions, iv., 129. 5 ii., 389, 391. The British official estimate in 1749 was 220,000 whites (Pitlvin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). Pres. Ezra Stiles supposed 234,000 in 1754 (Holmes's Annals, ii., 538). Burnaby, in 1759 (Travels, 2d ed.,136), learned that the inhabitants of Massachusetts were " supposed to amount to 200,000." Gov. Pownall (Memorial, 58), arguing probably from the list of polls, and therefore underestimating, gives 210,000 as an approximate figure for 1701. 6 Felt (Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 157) makes the total 254,253; but Dr. J. Chickoring, in his Statistical View of the Population of Mass. (Boston, 1840), 4-5, proves omissions which make the result for what is now Massachusett* about 215,718, to which adding the District of Maine, we get 209,711. Dr. J. Belknap (Mass. Hist. Soc Collections, iv., 198) remarks that this census, being an unpopular measure, was not accurately taken; so that Dr. t^hickering's total may need to be increased. 8 her numbers, no less than her spirit, Massachusetts was entitled to vie with Virginia, the only larger colony, in leading the opposition to the Stamp Act. In 1776 came another census, taken ^75,327. by suggestion of Congress, and aggre- gating near 340,000 ;^ the Congressional levies of the previous year had assumed a total of 352,000,2 which was hardly true until the war, with all its hin- drances to growth, was nearing its close, say by 1780.^ With the approach of peace and the new influx of foreign immigration began, as in almost all of these newly fledged republics, a wonderful recovery so rapid that while at the opening of the year 1786 the State authorities reported that returns lately made gave a popula- tion of about 357,000,^ the United States Census in August, 1790, adding 33 per cent, to this, reached the astounding figure of 475,327. With all allowance for the prosperity which flowed in like a torrent at this favored time, it is probable that the State returns for 1785 were 10,000 or 20,000 short of the truth. 1338,667, in Chickering's Statist. View, 9; Felt (Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 131-2, 165) does not give tlie complete figures. Trobably the returns were still below the actual population. 2 Or in 1774, 400,000 (John Adams's Works, vii., 302). 3 Felt gives (Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 132, 170) the polling-lists for 1778 (76,854), 1781 (79,645), and 1784 (91,546). Hryant and Gay's Popular Hist, of U. S. (iv., 91) estimates 350,000 in 1782. 4 Amer. Statist. Assoc, i., 170. Cf. Belknap in Mass. Hist. Soc Collections, v., 198. 9 For the ** Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plan- tations," the conditions of our problem are simpler than in other parts of the field. The aptness which this govern- ment developed for the taking of censuses, — no less than seven being ordered within seventy-five years, — and the compactness of the territory to be surveyed, have resulted in furnishing comparatively abundant information ; while the regularity of growth is also specially noticeable. For the seventeenth century we have only the inferences of later generations. The nearest to a contemporary esti- mate is that of the historian Callender, that in 1658 — fifty years to be sure before his own birth — there were, perhaps, fewer than 200 families^ in the whole jurisdiction. If this figure deserves credence, it is likely that in 1663, Avhen Charles the Second's Charter took efiect, the white inhabit- ants were less than 2,000.^ At the date of Philip's War they may have increased to 3,000,^ and at the Revolution of 1689 to 5,000.4 We come next to a Census taken in 1708, in conformity with a request from the Board of Trade. This showed 7,181 whites and negroes in the nine towns of the Colony,^ and was followed by another in 1730, similarly prompted, which gave a total of 16,950, besides 985 Indians.^ The Colony advanced at the same rate of growth^ until 1747, when a strip of territory was acquired from Massachusetts,® iHist. Discourse, 149, in R. I. Hist. Soc. Collections, iv. 2 Bancroft (i., 363-4) thinks there may have been 2,500; Durfee (Discourse before R. I. Hist. Soc, 10) says, not over 3,000 or 4,000. Palfrey (Hist., iii., a-) conjectures 3,000 in 1G05. 3 Bancroft (i., 383) says, perhaps 4,000. 4 Bancroft (i., 60S) says, perhaps 6,000. 5R. I. Col. Records, iv.,59; Arnold's Hist., ii., 32. eCallender's Hist. Discourse, 93, 94; Arnold's Hist., ii., 101. Chalmers (in Hist, of the Revolt, ii., 7,) cites a British estimate for 1715 of 9,000, which is too low. 7Pres. John Adams, in his Twentj'^-Six Letters respecting the Revolution, written in 1780, says (Works, vii., 303), that in 173S there were 15,000 inhabit- ants in R. I. Douglass (Summary, ii., 180) estimates 30,000 in 1742. 8 Containing 4,776 inhabitants (Arnold's Hist., ii., 166). 2 10 which ticcounts for the increase to over 34,000^ in the third census, that of 1748, in response to more queries from the Board of Trade. After this the old rate of o:rowth ^nve sh'ghtly over 40,000 in 1755,^ at the last enumeration by British authority. 68,825. On the eve of the Revolution, the General Assembl}^ of its own motion, caused a most elaborate census to be taken, in June, 1774, and thus recorded almost the highest mark of prosperity in the Colonial stage, — not quite 60,000.^ Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill put a sudden stop to all this prosperity. With a British fleet threatening thenceforth her exposed territory, and half the population of her chief town scattered, no wonder that a census taken in June, 1776, on recommendation of the Continental (Con- gress, showed a loss to Rhode Island of 5,000 — 8 per cent, of her total — within two years. '^ Under the same causes, a census in 1782 showed a further reduction of 5 per cent. ;^ but with the close of hostilities the tide turned, and the Federal Convention underestimated the truth in assuminij 58,000^ as the probable population in 1787. The census of 1790 showed the figure at that date to be 68,825, leaving Rhode Island, as she had been for the preceding century, the most densely populated of any of the original States. Her share in the proceeds of the slave-trades 1 Arnold, ii., 173. Cf . Snow's Report on the Census of R. I. for 1865, xxxii., xxxiv. 2 40,414, as given in Potter's Early Hist, of Narragansett, 174; 40,680, as given in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 2d series, vii.,113, and (in more detail) in Pros. Ezra Stiles's MSS., in Yale University Library. 3 59,707; printed in detail, with the names of all heads of families, in 1858. 4 55,011 ; in Snow's Report on Census of 1865, xxxii. 5 About 52,400, one town which was in the enemy's hands not being reported ; see Arnold's Hist., ii., 481. 6 Curtis's Hist, of the Constitution, ii., 168. 11 suggested incidentally by the fact that at the acme of her Colonial prosperity one person of every nine within her borders was either a negro or an Indian, — four or five times as great a proportion, that is to say, as in her neighbors, and unequalled anywhere north of Mason and Dixon's line. Passing to Connecticut, we find there, with even more regular growth, no such openness in regard to its statistics. We are forced continually to remember that Connecticut pursued in her colonial history the policy of hiding her strength in quietness ; so far as miglit not be inconsistent with general truthf illness, she preferred to make no exhibit of her actual condition. The beo:innino:s here were feeble as elsewhere. The historian Trumbull's conjecture^ still commands respect, that at the close of the first year of settlement the original colony had increased to probably 800 persons, and Lord Say and Sele in 1642 testifies^ to the understanding in Eng- land that the same settlements had grown by that time to over 2,000. At the establishment of the New England Confederacy in 1643, the towns along the Connecticut were rated as if containing nearly or quite 3,000 souls, and the younger Colony of New Haven as if numbering nearly or quite 2,500.3 From this date to the union of the two gov- ernments, Connecticut grew somewhat slowly,'^ and New Haven was still less vigorous. I doubt if the total in 1665, when the union was finally adjusted, could have been over 9,000,^ — about one-third the number in Massachusetts, and this proportion held good through that century. In 1679 the authorities received a list of searching queries from the Lords of Trade, but contented themselves as to 1 Hist, of Conn., i., 68. 2 Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., i., 128. sPalfrey'sHist., ii.,5, 6. 4 Her ratable polls in 1654 were perhaps 825, and population about 4,000— 4,500 (Colony Records, 1636-65, 265). 5 Trumbull says (Hist, of Conn., i., 287), 1,700 families, and 8—9,000 inhabit- ants; Palfrey says (Hist., iii., 35), 10,000 or more. 12 statistics of population with reporting the figures of the militia-rolls, Avhich imply in the current decade an advance (almost wholly without help from immigration) from about 10,000 to 14,000. ^ For the next thirty years the numbers of taxable persons recorded annually with more or less fulness in the assessments of rates by the Colonial Assembly^ are our best clues to the population, though these lists do not cover unincorporated neighborhoods, and new towns were apt to be released from being listed for a few years after incorporation. These clues justify Mr. Bancroft's supposition^ of from 17,000 to 20,000 in 1689, but require us to double almost the estimate in Trumbull's History^of 17,000 in 1713. In 1730 the Colony had another set of queries to answer, and found its interest as^ain in minimizin«: the account of its resources : the inhabitants were computed at 38,700,^ prob- ably about two-thirds the actual number. The discrepancy between fact and representation was still greater in 1749, when yet another list of troublesome inquiries from London was answered with a guess of 71,000^ for the population of a Colony, which less than seven years later, under a per- emptory requirement of a house-to-house census, proved to have over 130,000.' After this date progress was slightly checked for a time by the French war and by removals to newly conquered 1 In 1671, 2,050 militia (from 16 to 60 years old) ; in 1676, 2,303; in 1677, 2,365 ; in 1678, 2,490; in 1679, 2,507. (Col. Records, 1678-89, 295, 298.) Other esti- mates are the following :— Peters, in 1670, 15,000, and in 1680, 20.000 (General Hist. Conn., 263) ; Bancroft, in 1675, nearly 14,000 whites (Eist., i., 383) ; Bay- lies, in 1676, 13,750 (Hist, of Plymouth Colony, iii., 191). 2 (^ol. Records, j9assm. 3 i., 608. 4 i., 451. Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt (ii., 7,) cites an official estimate of 47,500 in 1715, which is much too large. 5 Col. Records, vii., 584. G Col. Records, ix., 596; the real figure was about double what it was at the last inquiry, and the British Government adopted 100,000 whites as their esti- mate (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). 7 130,612, or (according to another count) 132,416. Cf. Col. Records, x., 618, 623. 13 territory ; but a census in 1761 gave a total of 145,590^ and a higher rate of increase brought up the result before the Revohition to 200,000, exclusive of settlements in the Wyoming Valley.^ Another census at the war's close, showed a gain, if only of 8,000,^ and the Federal census of 1790 gave 237,946, the tide of Western emigration preventing as rapid a growth as just before the war. That such emigration was foregone conclusion, is evident from the fact that Rhode Island was the only State which surpassed Con- necticut, down to 1790, in density of population. 237,946. The Province of New York offers a marked contrast to Connecticut in its attitude towards superior authority, sur- passing even Rhode Island in the frequency of its official enumerations. When wrested from the Dutch, in 1664, New Nether land may possibly have contained 7,000 souls,^ — not quite as many as Connecticut, not one-quarter as many as Massachusetts ; at their temporary restoration, nine years later, the Dutch estimated their own contingent in the Colony as about 6,000 or 7,000, to which must be added perhaps half as many English and other whites.^ 1 To this number might be added 930 Indians living among the whites (Col. Records, xi., 575, G30). 2 A census in 1774 gave 196,088, without Wyoming (Col. Records, xiv. 490-1) ; the estimate of Congress in 1774 was 192,000, and another in 1775 was 262,000. 3 208,870, in 1782; the Federal Convention of 1787 estimated Conn, at 202,000. (Curtis's Hist, of Const., ii., 168.) 4 J. A. Stevens, in Winsor's Hist, of America (iii., 385), says not over 7,000; Roberts (Hist, of N. Y., i., 95) thinks 8,000 a liberal estimate; O'Callaghan (Hist, of New Netherland, ii., 540) cites Dutch local authorities for full 10,000; a Memorial of Holland Traders (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., ii., 512) says over 8,000. 5 Documents relating to Col. Hist., ii., 526, and Roberts's N. Y., 107-9. 14 The Proprietary period of New York history ended with James the Second's downfall in 1689, but no new spirit of growth marked the change to a Royal Colony. A thorough census, the first of any magnitude in all the British Colo- nies, was ordered by the Governor, Lord Bellomont, in 1698, and yielded 18,067 ;' but the preceding decade had been one of alarms and of war, and the northern part of the Province had suffered from resulting emigrations, so that Mr. Bancroft's estimate^ of not less than 20,000 at the Revolution of '89 is not seriously at fault. Lord Cornbury took a second census, five years after, which yielded an increase of nearly 15 per cent.^ Then followed Governor Hunter's in 1712, which met with so much opposition, from superstitious fear of its breeding sickness,"^ that only partial returns were obtained ; these indicate a total of over 28,000.^ More satisfactory results were gained in the next attempts, and the censuses for 1723, 1731, 1737, and 1746, exhibit a regular progression, yielding in round numbers, respectively, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 and 70,000.^ These results need probably to be modified by Governor Clinton's admission in reporting on the returns of yet another census in 1749,^ that since the officers have no pay for this service, it is performed reluc- tantly and carelessly. Again, in 1756, in answer to the Board of Trade's 1 Documeuts relating to Col. Hist., iv., 420. 2 i., 608. Brodheacl (Hist, of N. Y., ii., 458) puts the population in 1686 at about 18,000. 3 20,665, as given in Hough's N. Y. Census for 1855, iv. ; 20,748, in Documents relating to Col. Hist., v., 339. 4 Cf. I Chron., xxi. 5 Documents relating to Col. Hist., v., 339; Hough's Census for 1855, v. Chalmers, in Hist, of the Revolt (ii., 7), cites a government estimate for 1715 of 31,000, a probable figure; Roberts (N. Y., i., 232) quotes the same as for 1720, not so appropriately. c 40,564 in 1723 (Documents relating to Col. Hist., v., 702) ; 50,289 in 1731 (do., iv., 694; the figures in do., v., 929, are incorrect) ; 60,437 in 1737 (do., vi., 133); 61,589 in 1746, without Albany County, *' not possible to be numbered on ac- count of the Enemy" (do., vi., 392). 7 73,448. See Documents relating to Col. Hist., vi., 509, 550. 15 Queries, in the interest of war-levies, the population was found to nuntber 96,790.^ Then, after a longer interval, during which the rate of increase rose sensibly, especially by reason of the conquest of Canada and the extinction of border warfare, came Governor Tryon's census in 1771, with a total (excluding the Vermont towns) of 163,338.^ This progress continued until war came on. About 190,000 is probably a fair estimate for 1775,^ and a State census for 178(3, after the results of peace were actually in hand, gave 50,000 more,' not perhaps a complete return, as the Federal census four years later gained on this figure by more than 100,000, or 42 per cent.^ In this unparalleled prosperity the largest factor was the development of the new and hitherto scarcely settled Western section. For New Jersey our data are meagre, but suflScient to characterize its orrowth as slow and feeble. The first important colonization was that begun in 1665 by the English, who at the time of the Dutch seizure of New York in 1673 numbered pro])ably 3,000,^ and by the expiration of twenty-five years was near 10,000."^ Meantime, West 1 83,242 whites, and 13;548 blacks (Hough's Census of 1855, vi.). Bancroft (ii., 389, 391) says in 1754 about 85,000 whites and not far from 11.000 negroes. •2 Documentary Hist, of N. Y., i., 697, or Hough's Census of 1^55, vii. 3 Prof. A. Joluiston (School Hist., 93) estimates 180,000; the estimate of Congress was about 250,000. 4 238,897 (Hough's Census of 1855, viii.). 5 .340,120. 6 4B9 adult males (Whitehead's E. Jersey under the Proprietors, 2d ed., 76). 3,500 in 1676, according to Dr. Daniel Coxe (N". J. Archives, ii., 14). About 5,250 in 1682 (Smith's Hist., 161. Cf. Winsor's Hist, of Amer., iii., 436). , 7 Whitehead, in Winsor's Hist., iii., 446; Bancroft, i., 608. 16 Jersey, settled in 1674, was much less sturdy, its first quarter of a century bringing it perhaps to 4,000.^ The great crisis in the history of these sections, dis- tracted hitherto by complicated and conflicting claims, arrived in 1702, when the Crown assumed the government of perhaps a little over 15,000 inhabitants.^ By this change the conditions of life were made more secure and more inviting, yet growth was sluggish. A census was unpopu- lar, for the same reasons as in New York, and not until 1726 was any regular enumeration effected, the result at that date being 32,442.^ The quj^rrelsomeness and general turbulence of the communit}^ and the lack of appropriations for payment to the collectors, limited the number of further censuses under Provincial authority to two, in 1737 and 1745, which amounted, speaking roughly, to 50,000 and 60,000, from seven to eight per cent, being negroes.^ After this we have such guesses as the Royal Governors could make, for the satisfaction of their superiors. In 1754 and again in 1755, Governor Belcher reported about 80,000 whites and from 1,500 to 1,800 blacks,^ the latter item an evident understatement ; and Governor Franklin in 1774 conjectured 120,000,^ implying a stunted growth, to be accounted for in part by the drain of emigration to the South and West, since the Peace of Paris. A more rapid advance set in after the Revolution, so that the General Assembly was justified in assuming in 1784 1832 freeholders in 1699 (N. J. Archives, ii., 305). 2Gen. McClellan, in Encycloya!dia liritannica, 9th ed., xvii.,398; from Hum- phreys's Hist. Account of the S. P. G. (1701), 42. Chalmers, in Hist, of the Revolt, i., 376, gives a wild guess of about 8,000 in 1702. 8N. J. Archives, v., 164. 447,369 in 1737 (N. J. Archives, vi., 244). 61,383, including 4,606 slaves, in 1745 (do., 242, 243). 5N. J. Archives, viii., pt. 2, 84, 186. A British official estimate of 1749 was 60,000 whites (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12) ; Bancroft comi)Utes (ii., 389, 391) for 1754 about 73,000 whites and 5,500 blacks; Douglass (Summary, ii., 286) says in 1755 about 50,000; Burnaby's Travels (2d ed., 58) say 70,000 in 1760. , ^X. J. Archives, x., 446. He supposes an increase of over 20,000 since 1764. The estimate of Congress in 1774 was 130,000 (John Adams's Works, vii., 302). 17 a population of about 150,000/ which the first United States census carried up to 184,139. In Pennsylvania and Delaware, so far as ^^'^^^• appears, the census of 1790 was the first thorough enumeration attcnii)ted, nid ic- cordingly we are much in the dark for all the colonial period ; %^%ZiZ^Z^^^„ a special embarrassment arises, moreover, in discussing such data as we have, from the uncertainty whether in any given case, Delaware, a quasi-independent adjunct of the Province, is included. In 1681, before the arrival of Penn's settlers, the terri- tory contained about 500 whites,^ mainly Swedes on the banks of the Delaware; but by 1685 the number had risen to 7,200.^ The popular impression is correct, that coloniza- tion here was throughout more rapid than in any other of the original governments ; and Mr. Bancroft, in his review of America at the Revolution of 1689, sees reason to con- clude that Pennsylvania and Delaware numbered already perhaps 12,000. ^ The contemporary estimates, however, are of little help. Col. Heathcote, of the New York government, informed the Propagation Society in 1700, that there w^ere in Penn- sylvania at least 20,000 souls. ^ Chalmers cites^ a Govern- ment estimate for 1715 of 45,800; but the value of such evidence is diminished by the frank admission of the Board of Trade's careful Report, six years later,''' that the accounts 1 138,934 whites, and 10,501 blacks. 2 F. D. Stone, in Winsor's Hist, of America, iii., 480. 3 do., 491. M.,608. 5 Humphreys's Hist. Account of S. P. G., 42. Bryant and Gay's Popular History (iii., 170) says over 20,000. Grahame's History (2d ed., i., 551) estimates 35,000. 6 Hist, of the Revolt, li., 7. 7 Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 604. 3 18 submitted to them differ wildly, ranging from 65,000 to half that figure. Governor Gordon in 1730^ gave his estimate of the pop- ulation as 49,000, and this is supported apparently by the number of taxables,^ though I suspect that these did not represent the same per cent, of the whole as in the northern colonies. Reasoning likewise from the list of taxable per- sons in 1750,^ we get for that date a probable total of 150,000, and in 1760, 220,000.'* This rapid increase had placed Pennsylvania before the middle of the century next in numbers to Virginia and Massachusetts, but now ensued a slight moderation of her headlong advance. Dr. Frank- lin, in his famous examination before the House of Com- mons in 1766,^ supposed that there might be about 160,000 whites in Pennsylvania alone ; but he did not profess to speak with accuracy, and was under a bias which led him, perhaps unconsciously, into cautious understatement. More credible is the historian Proud's inference in 1770^ from the number of taxables, that there were 250,000 people in Pennsylvania, and from 20,000 to 30,000 in Delaware. 1 British Museum, Add. MS. 30,372. 2 Proud's Hist, of Pa. (ii., 275) says not over 10,000 in 1731 in Pennsylvania alone; but T should estimate the population of Pennsylvania and Delaware at about (39,000. For 1740, Provost C. J. Stille (Pa. Magazine of Hist., x., 284) says about 100,000. 3About 21,000 in Pennsylvania alone in 1751 (Proud's Hist., ii., 275) ; not over 22,000 in 1752 (Hist. Review of Government of Pa., 196). Pres. Ezra Stiles (Ms. Itinerary, 1763) quotes Dr. Franklin as telling him that he supposed 160,- 000 in Pennsylvania in 1752; but Franklin's Preface to Galloway's Speech, in 1764 (Works, ed. Bigelow, iii., 334) computes 20,000 houses in the Province in 1752, each on an average containing five persons. The British Government in 1749 estimated 250,000 whites in Pennsylvania and Delaware (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). ^31,667 taxables in Pennsylvania alone (Col. Records, xi v., 336). Compare the estimate, by one of the Governor's Council, of 200,000 in 1757 {do., vii., 448). Bancroft's figures (ii., 389, 391) for 1754, 206,000, seem too large; as also those of Gov. Morris in 1755, over 300,000 (Col. Rec, vi., 336), and of Burnaby's Travels (2d ed., 80) in 1759, 4-500,000. 5 Works, ed. Bigelow, iii., 412; in same vol. (334) he supposes not over 110,000 in 1764. 6 Hist, of Pa., ii., 275, 276. Cf. Col. Records, xiv., 336. 19 This enormous growth kept up with scarcely any relaxa- tion until the war, Governor Penn reporting in January, 1775, over 300,000^ for Pennsylvania alone, while during the war the estimate of Congress, which was located favor- ably for an accurate judgment, stood at the same figure.^ Even more startling was the increase after 493,467. the war ceased,^ when for the first time Massachusetts was outstripped, and the esti- mate of the Federal Convention in 1787, remarkably correct in comparison with most of its other guesses, was 397,000.^ The result in 1790 was second only to Virginia (both absolutely, and in percentage of growth since 1775), being 434,373 for Penns} 1- vania proper, and 59,094 for Delaware. It should be noted in passing that, from about the middle of the century, when Bos- ton was left behind, i i | Philadelphia was by far the most populous place in the Colonies. Maryland presents throughout a uniform and gradual development, resembling strikingly that of Connecticut. She began with Leonard Calvert's cargo of 300 colonists in 1634, and enjoyed such accessions that in 1660 she was reported in England as " peopled with 8,000 souls," ^ while 1 300,000 whites and 2,000 blacks (Pa. Archives, iv., 597). Scharfs Hist, of Maryland says (ii., 200) 341,000 in 1775, excluding slaves. 2 Pa. Archives, viii., 473 (for 1780) ; the estimate for Delaware was 37,000. •Thetaxables for 1779 were 45,683 (Brissot's New Travels, 326). Bryant and Gay's Popular Hist, of U. S. says (iv., 91,) 350,000 in 1782 in Pennsylvania. 3 66,925 taxables in 17S6 (Brissot, 326). 4 360,000 in Pennsylvania, and 37,000 in Delaware (Curtis's Hist, of the Con- stitution, ii., 168). 5 Thomas Fuller's notice of Sir George Calvert, in his "Worthies (written 1660, 1661), lii., 418. 20 ill 1665^ rumor had doubled even this allotment. In 1667 Ave have a Maryltmd clergyman's letter, written however with a purpose which would be helped by a generous esti- mate, which claims at least 20,000 souls^ for the province. These figures are all conjectural ; but a series of more authority begins in 1701, with the Governor's report of 32,000 in round numbers for that year.^ Computations conformable with this for other years follow, * with the first detailed census in 1712, showing just over 46,000,^ of whom the neo^roes were less than one-fifth. According to the Board of Trade's Report in 1721, already quoted in several cases, the population of Mary- land, two years before, was 55,000 whites and 25,000 blacks ;^ but some error lies in these figures, which has caused other exaggerations. Especially to be questioned is the implication that the blacks were nearly one-third of the whole. The truth may have been that the whites num- bered 50,000, and the blacks 10,000 or 12,000. For the next thirty years we have no full evidence,"^ but the result is shown in Governor Ogle's report for 1748^ of 1 Oklmixon's Brit. Empire in America, i., 191. Bancroft (i., 170) adopts Fuller's estimate as more probable. It is not likely that there were 11,000 in 1665. Ogilby's America (185) in 1671 estimates 15,000 to 20,000 whites. 2 Kev. J. Yeo, in Anderson's Hist, of the Colonial Church, 2d ed., ii., 395. Hildreth's Hist, (i., 567) says perhaps 16,000 in 1670. 3 32,258, according to British Museum, Add. MS. 30,372. McMahon (Hist, of Md., i., 273) and Bancroft (i., 008) estimate 25,000 in 1689; J. Esteu Cooke (Va., 308) says 35,000 in 1700; Humphreys (Hist. Account of S. P. G., 1701) says over 25,000. 4 For 1704, 35,012, and for 1710, 42,741 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 605). Oklmixon's Brit. Empire in A^merica, 1708 (i., 204), says 30,000, and Scharf s Hist, of Md. (i., 370) says over 40,000 for same year. Ban- croft (ii., 23) follows Oldmixon. 546,073, of whom 8,330 were negroes (Scharf's Hist., i., 377). A Govern- ment estimate in 1715 gives 50,200 (Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt, ii., 7). 6 Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 605. 7 There is a Government estimate of 96,000 in 1732. The taxables (i. e., all males over sixteen, and all female negroes) were 31,470 in 1733 (McMahon's Hist., i., 313). 8 Scharf's Hist., i., 437, or McMahon, i., 313 : about 94,000 whites and 36,000 blacks. An Knglish official estimate in 1749 was 85,000 whites (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). Winsor's Hist, of America (v., 151) gives 100,000 as the total for 1749. 21 130,000 inhabitants. A census in 1755, for the informa- tion of the Board of Trade, yielded about 154,000, — the negroes and raulattoes being about thirty per cent, of the whole ;^ and another return of the Governor and Council in 1761 reported 164,000,^ of whom some 50,000 were blacks. As the understood object of these returns was for use in laying military requisitions, it is likely that evasions were frequent. The intervening period, until the Revolu- ^^^"^^4 tion, is not known in detail, but the rate of 3 growth seems to have been slightly below that of other Colonies in that era of gcnei il expansion. At the outbreak of the ^^ 11 the CT2 O numbers were probably near 250,000,*^ and at its close four thousand more.'* From this time to the census of 1790, with its total of 320,000,^ the increase was a moderate one, though owing to limitations of territory the resulting den- sity of population was unequalled outside of New England ; and this helps to account for the decided stand of Maryland 1 107,208 whites, 42,764 negroes, 3,592 miilattoes (Gentleman's Magazine, xxxiv., 261). Another account (McMahon, i., 313, and Scharf, ii., 14) gives 107,963 whites and 46,225 blacks. Bancroft says (ii., 389, 391) 104,000 whites and 44,000 blacks in 1754. 2 114,332 whites, 49,675 blacks (McMahon, i., 313). Eev. Ethan Allen (Am. Qiiarterl)- Church Review, xviii., 39) supposes over 200,000 in 1758. Burnaby conjectured in 1759 (Travels, 2d ed., 67) about 90,000 whites and 32,000 slaves. 3 Lodge (Short Hist, of Engl. Colonies) adopts this figure. J. F. D. Smyth was told (Tour in U. S., ii., 187) that the numbers were 275,000. W. T. Brant- ley estimates them (Encyclopa3dia Britannica, 9th ed., xv., 603) at 200,000 in 1775. A Congressional estimate in 1774 was 320,000 (J. Adams's Works, vii., 302). 4 Encycl. Britannica, 9Lh ed., xv., 603. 5 319,728, of which 103,036 were slaves. The Federal Convention in 1787 estimated 250,000, of which 80,000 were slaves. 22 in refusing to adopt the Articles of Confederation until the rights of the general government to the undeveloped West were secured. Virginia, the leader of the Colonies in time, and soon in numbers also, began as feebly as any. After ten years of existence (in 1616) her roll of inhabitants was only 351,^ but immigration had swelled this list to 2,400^ before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. In the midst of this prosperity came the Indian massacre of 1622, which deci- mated the colony at once,^ and caused siich alarm and flight as reduced it a few months later at least one-half.^ These misfortunes expedited a change of administration, so that Virginia became a Royal Colony in 1624, and the first account of stock taken, early in 1628, showed nearly 3,000 persons.^ It took seven years for these to increase to 5,000,^ and five years more to bring them up to 7,500.''' Then came a speedier growth, so that the last figure was doubled in eight years, ^ and this doubled again in eleven more, or by 1659.^ Meantime, one consequence of the Revolution in England had been an increased immigration 1 C. Campbell's Hist, of Va., 117, and R. A. Brock, in Winsor's Hist, of Amer., iii., 141. Cf. Jefferson's Notes (Works, viii., 329). 2 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574—1660, 22. 3 350-375 victims, out of a population estimated from 2,200 to over 4,000. Pur- chas's Pilgrims (iv., 1792) says 1,800 survived. Bancroft (i.,128) says the immi- grants had exceeded 4,000. 4 Bancroft (i., 128) says only 2,500 remained one year after the massacre. A list in the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574— 1660, 57 (cf. 43) , seems to show only 1,275 in the winter of 1623-4, and 370 killed in the massacre. 5 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574—1660, 89. Gov. Harvey (do., 117) estimated the inhabitants in May, 1630, at over 2,500. 6 5,119 in Census, early in 1635 (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, 201). 7 7,647 in 1640 is the estimate of the editors of the Aspinwall Papers, in Mass. Hist. Society's Collections, 4th series, ix., 79. Holmes's Annals (i., 315) sup- poses about 20,000 in 1642. 8 A Perfect Description of Va., 1649 (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d ser., ix., 105, or Force's Tracts, ii.), says about 15,000 English and 300 negroes. Bancroft's statement (i., 143), 20,000 at Christmas, 1648, seems too large. 9 30,000 (wrongly printed 80,000) in ]659 (Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1661-68, 350). The same, for 1660, in Chalmers's Polit. Annals, 125, and Ban- croft, i., 152. 23 to the loyal Dominion of Virginia, which thus gained the leadership in numbers, before held by Massachusetts, but not again to be transferred, until New York claimed it in 1820. In the next eleven years, the epoch of the Restoration, with its refluent tide of immigration, the rise was only from 30,000 to 40,000,1 and at the crisis of the Revolution of 1689 this mother of colonies fell still a little short of 60,000.2 Fourteen years were needed to raise the figure to 70,000,^ and another fourteen to make 100,000.^ Between this date and the Old French War it is clear that the rate of growth was much accelerated, though we have few details. In 1755 Governor Dinwiddle,^ on con- fessedly imperfect data, believed the total to be 230,000 ; but within a year he gives us the number of tithables,^ from which might be inferred a total of almost 300,000, — the blacks being not far from 40 per cent, of the whole, their usual proportion through the century. The growth between the French War and the Revolution was so marvelous as to appear incredible. In 1772 the tithables'' imply a population of 475,000, — more than one- fifth of the sum total in the country. Probably Governor Pownall's estimate in 1774,^ 300,000 whites, was not iQov. Berkeley in 1671 says above 40,000 (Chalmers's Polit. Annals, 327). -Bancroft (i., 608) estimates, 50,000 or more. The militia in 1690 were 6,570 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 607). 3 0klmixon's Brit. Empire in Amer., i., 289. 58,000 in 1699 is the estimate of an official Report, in Brit. Museum, Add. MS. 30,372. Humphreys's Hist. Account of S. P. G. computes in 1700-01 above 40,000 [whites?]. The militia in 1703 were 10,556 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 607). 4 Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt (ii., 7) gives an estimate of 95,000 for 1715. The taxables (i. e., all males over 16, and all black females over 16) in 1715 were 31,658 (Gov. Spotswood's Letters, ii., 140). The militia in 1716 were 15,000 (fZo., 211). 5 Dinwiddle Papers, i., 387. Bancroft (ii., 390, 391) put the whites in 1754 at 168,000, and the blacks at not less than 116,000. 43,329 whites, and 60,078 blacks (Dinwiddle Papers, ii., 353, 474, 532). Neill's English Colonization in America, 67, reports the population in 1757 as 44,214 whites, and 58,292 blacks ; but these are the tithables. U53,000 (Jefterson's Notes, in Works, viii., 329). 8 John Adams's Works, viii., 329. 24 essentially wrong, which would imply m,m.^ at the beginning of the Revolution about | 550,000 in all,^ — Massachusetts, the next largest government, having less ^ than two-thirds of this number. In 1782 an incomplete census was made, the result of which, conjecturally modi- fied, gives 567,000,^ and the census of 1790 mounts up for Virginia proper, with the newly organized district of Kentucky, to a total of over 820,000,^ s in which the blacks still held nearly ^ their old ratio of 40 per cent. It is ^ noticeable that although elsewhere much more in excess of the whites, in no other colony did the colored element increase in that century with anything like the rapidity shown here. i t In North Carolina, most backward in many respects of the original colonies, there was no enumeration of the inhabitants before 1790. We grope our way, therefore, in much uncertainty. When a charter was secured by Clarendon and his asso- ciates in 1663, it is supposed that there may have been 300 iThe extravagant estimate of Congress in 1774 was 640,000 (J. Adams's Works, vii., 302) ; J. F. D. Smyth, in his Tour in U. S. (!., 72), suggests about 500,000 as more correct, but supposes that of these near two-thirds were blacks. 2 Jettcrson's Notes, in Works, viii., 332, 333. 3 Virginia, 747,610, and Kentucky, 73,077. 25 families^ in the Albemarle region, later known as North Carolina. Secretary Miller on his arrival in 1677 reported the tithables in this district as 1,400,^ from which Dr. Hawks infers^ from 2,500 to 3,000 people ; adding to these the colonists at Cape Fear,'* Mr. Bancroft^ estimates the whole as hardly 4,000. Rebellion, anarchy, and the removal of the Cape Fear settlers, reduced the tithables by 1694 to 787,6 implying a total of under 2,000. The next highest point must have been on the eve of the Indian outbreak in 1711,^ and after the setback which this caused, we get a glimpse of the new rate of progress in the fact of not over 2,000 tithables, or at the utmost a popula- tion of 10,000 in 1717.^ From this date, and especially from the transfer of government to the Crown, the numbers multiplied much more rapidly. A comparison of Governor Burrino^ton's assertion that in 1732^ the whites were full 30,000 and the negroes about 6,000, with the militia roU,^" more than justifies Mr. Bancroft's conjecture^^ of 90,000 in 1754. Ten years later we have about 135,000 as the estimate of Governor Dobbs/~ certainly not an excessive one ; but details of the later strides towards repletion are wanting. In 1774 the estimate of Congress was 300,000 ;^3 but this, like all the estimates of that session, was 1 Rivers, in Winsor's Hist, of Amer., v., 305. 2 Chalmers's Polit. Annals, 533. SHist. of N. C.,ii.,4(J9. 4 800 in 1G66 (Hawks, ii., 453). 5i.,425. 6 Rivers, in Winsor's Hist., v., 305. 7 Hawks thinks (Hist., ii., 89) there were then less than 7,000; judging from the official estimate, in 1715, of 7,500 whites and 3,750 blacks. Humphreys's Hist. Account of S. P. G. says over 5,000 whites in 1701. 8 Williamson's Hist, of N. C, i., 207, or Hawks, ii., 89. Col. Saunders esti- mates 9,000, in Col. Records, ii., xvii. '•' Saunders, Col. Records, ii., xvii. Martin's estimate (Hist, of N. C, i., 302, 303) of not over 10,000 in 1729, adopted by Hawks (ii., 103), is absurdly low. w 15,400 in 1753 (Rivers, in Winsor's Hist., v., 304). 11 70,000 whites and 20,000 blacks (ii., 390, 391). The British government esti- mated in 1749 45,000 whites (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). 12 Rivers, in Winsor's Hist., v., 305. 13 John Adams's Works, vii., 302. 4 !9,442. i 26 regarded subsequently as too liberal, and probably 260,000^ Avas nearer the truth. At any rate, there was surprising pro- gress during the decade preceding the Revolution, in which time none of the larger colonies increased as rapidly as this ; but numbers do not necessarily carry weight, and though at the Revolution fourth in population among all the sisterhood, North Carolina was by no means fourth in importance. The years of the war were believed to 429,442. be eminently disastrous to her growth,^ and the Federal Convention's estimate in 1787 was 224,000,^ — in comparison with its other guesses, the most grossly deficient of them all, less than two-thirds what it should have been, as shown by the census of 1790, which amounted to 393,751, besides 35,691 classed as inhabitants of the <*Territoi^ south-west of the Ohio, hither- to in North Caro- lina, and after- ^ wards the State 'o'''*'^^'~*~o"""'"f'*"""^^ o- o . . _ . _. .. of Tennessee. The permanent development of South Carolina dates from 1670, and at the first important epoch, the founding of Charleston in 1680, the district contained from 1,000 to 1,200 souls, "* while the impulse contributed by the new capital more than doubled^ the number in the next two years. Some basis for a judgment is furnished by a Re- port of the notorious Edward Randolph, as agent for the Board of Trade, who professed to find in 1699 near 1,500 1 Tucker's Hist, of U. S., i., 96, and Johnston's School Hist., 93. Wanting little of 300,000 in 1776, says W. C. Kerr, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., xvii,, 562. 2 Cf. J. F. D. Smyth's Tour in U. S., i., 235. 3Curtis's Hist, of the Constitution, ii., 168. 4 T. Ash, in Carroll's Hist. Collections, ii., 82. 6 Ibid. 27 whites of military age, and four times as many negroes.^ This is strikingly inconsistent with a report by the Gov- ernor and Council in 1708, placing the whites at about 4,000, and the blacks at 5,500.^ Probably, as the interests of the two parties were directly opposed, the agent's repre- sentations need to be scaled down, and those of the Colony officials to be magnilied. It is clear that already the negroes with the Indians were outnumbering the whites, and henceforth the negroes multi- ply with startling celerity. The war which broke out in 1715 scattered the Indian tribes and checked slightly the process of growth in the Province, which then numbered over 16,000 ;3 but by 1720 the Governor could report 20,000."^ With the revolt from proprietary rule in 1719 began a distinctly more prosperous era, as is clear from Governor Glenn's rather generous estimate of 32,000^ population, five years later. This occurs in a Description of the Province, written in 1749, which supplies also our next data, namely, whites nearly 25,000, and negroes at least 39,000,^ — con- siderably below the total in North Carolina for the same year. 1 Rivers's Sketch of Hist, of S. C, 443. Hewatt's Hist. Account (Carroll's Hist. Collections, i., 132) says 5-6,000 whites, about 1,700. Humphreys's Hist. Account of S. P. G. (25), in 1701, says above 7,000 whites. 2 9,580 in all (Rivers's Sketch, 232). Oldmixon's Brit. Empire in America, 1708, quoted in Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 460, says 12,000. 3 In 1714, 10,000 slaves (Rivers's Sketch, 251) and about 6,300 whites (do., Sup- plement, 92). A British estimate for 1715 was 6,250 whites and 10,500 blacks (Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt, ii., 7). 4 In Rivers's Sketch, Supplement, 19, 20, 92, 101, are two sets of returns for the whites in 1720,— one 6,400, and one about 9,000; the slaves are 11,828. 5 Whites, about 14,000 (Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 261). Bryant and Gay's Popular Hist, (iii., 107) estimates 6-7,000 whites and about 22,000 slaves in 1730. Purry's Description, in 1731 (Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 129), says over 40,000 negroes. Von Reek's Journal, 1734 (Force's Tracts, iv., 9), computes 30,000 negroes and four negroes to one white. These slave estimates all seem too high. 6 Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 218; the whites are estimated from the militia (about 5,000), and the negroes are those reported for taxation, probably not a full return. The British Government estimated, the same year, 30,000 whites (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12). In 1741, the Impartial Enquiry concerning Georgia (Ga. Hist. Soc. Collections, i., 167) says not over 5,000 whites and at 28 The next complete figures are those of Dr. 249,073. George Milligan, in 1763, from 30,000 to J 40,000 whites and about 70,000 slaves.^ Ten years later the militia were about 13,000 (im plying five times as many whites) and th negroes about ^ 110,000,2 which makes the hiofh- est point reached before the Revolution, still under 200,000. One result of the war was that, whereas for generations previous the blacks had outnumbered the whites so largely, the whole- sale exodus of negroes under the auspices of the British reversed this proportion of the races in the census of 1790, which gave 140,178 whites and 108,895 blacks. North Carolina and Virginia had suffered in the same manner, though scarcely to the same degree. Georgia, last in geographical order, had also the briefest history, and the most sparsely settled territory. Twenty years under the Trustees who projected it, failed to bring the permanent population up to 5,000 ;^ but with the lapse to the Crown in 1752 began a healthier growth. The new administration fostered slavery, and Governor Wright found in 1760 less than 6,000 whites and perhaps half as many blacks;'* in 1766 he reported near 10,000 whites and 8,000 blacks ;5 and in 1773 over 18,000 whites and 15,000 blacks.^ At this rate of increase the total in 1776 was probably least 40,000 blacks. Bancroft (ii., 390, 391) says in 1754 40,000 whites and full as many negroes. 1 Description of S. C, in Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 478, 479. There was 5,500 militia (whites) in 1756 (Gov. Lyttleton, in Winsor's Hist, of Amer., v., 335), and 6,200 in 1758 (Gov. Lyttleton, in Pres. Ezra Stiles' MSS.). Hewatt esti- mates in 1765 near 40,000 whites and 80-90,000 negroes (Carroll's Hist. Coll., i.,503). 2 Wells's S. C. Register for 1774, quoted in Winsor's Hist., v., 335. 3 Whites about 2,700 and blacks about 1,700, in 1752 (Jones's Hist, of Ga., 1., 400) . ^do., ii., 73. SfZo.. i.,460. ^do., ii.,522. 29 from 45,000 to 50,000/ or double the number of seven 82,548. ^gj^j,g before. In the times of inva- sion Georgia h'ke her neighbors suf- fered a diminution of her negroes,^ S I I i I i and the war reduced her grand total below the figures of 1776; but she rallied by 1790 to the much higher sum of 82,548, of which the whites made near two-thirds. In one respect, however, she was singularly misrepresented, being overestimated in the Federal Con- vention of 1787 at nearly half as much again as her real amount of population, while the rest of the colonies were underestimated considerably, — the total of the Convention's figures falling short of the reality by more than half a million. A summary of these results gives us a reasonably approxi- mate view of the growth of population in the whole country for the period before 1790. In the first third of a century, or by 1640, when Parlia- ment gained the ascendency in England, British America contained a little over 25,000 whites, — 60 per cent, of them in New England, and the most of the remainder in Virginia. At the Restoration of monarchy in 1660, the total was about 80,000, the greatest gain being in the most loyal divisions, Virginia and Maryland, which now comprehended one-half the whole. At the next epoch, the Protestant Revolution of 1689, Mr. Bancroft concludes^ that our num- bers were not much beyond 200,000, and the figures I have presented give about 206,000 ; in this increase one large factor was due to the Middle Colonies, which now for the first time assumed importance, numbering already nearly half as many as New England. A round half-million appears to have been reached about 1721, with the Middle Colonies showing again the largest percentage of growth, and New England the least. A million followed in twenty-two years more, or 1743, this 1 Bancroft estimates (iv., 181) in 1775 about 17,000 whites and 15,000 blacks. 2 Jones's Hist, (ii., 522) queries whether in 1782 she had over 35,000 inhabitants. 3i.,608. 28 The next complete figures are those of Dr. 249,073. George Milligan, in 1763, from 30,000 to ^<^ 40,000 whites and about 70,000 slaves.^ Ten ^ ^ years later the militia were about 13,000 (im- plying five times as many whites) and the negroes about 110,000,2 which makes the hio^h- _ *^^ est point reached | l before the Revolution, still under 200,000. One result of the war was that, whereas for generations previous the blacks had outnumbered the whites so largely, the whole- sale exodus of negroes under the auspices of the British reversed this proportion of the races in the census of 1790, which gave 140,178 whites and 108,895 blacks. North Carolina and Virginia had suffered in the same manner, though scarcely to the same degree. Georgia, last in geographical order, had also the briefest history, and the most sparsely settled territory. Twenty years under the Trustees who projected it, failed to bring the permanent population up to 5,000 ;^ but with the lapse to the Crown in 1752 began a healthier growth. The new administration fostered slavery, and Governor Wright found in 1760 less than 6,000 whites and perhaps half as many blacks ;4 in 1766 he reported near 10,000 whites and 8,000 blacks ;5 and in 1773 over 18,000 whites and 15,000 blacks.^ At this rate of increase the total in 1776 was probably least 40,000 blacks. Bancroft (ii., 390, 391) says in 1754 40,000 whites and full as many negroes. 1 Description of S. C, in Carroll's Hist. Coll., ii., 478, 479. There was 5,500 militia (whites) in 1750 (Gov. Lyttleton, in Winsor's Hist, of Anier., v., 335), and 6,200 in 1758 (Gov. Lyttleton, in Pres. Ezra Stiles' MSS.). Hewatt esti- mates in 1765 near 40,000 whites and 80-90,000 negroes (Carroll's Hist. Coll., i.,503). 2 Wells's S. C. Register for 1774, quoted in Winsor's Hist., v., 335. 3 Whites about 2,700 and blacks about 1,700, in 1752 (Jones's Hist, of Ga., i., 460) . ^do., ii.,73. s