PROPORTION OF MULATTOES IN THE NEGRO
             POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES.
   Preliminary  Thirteenth  Census  Statistics  Issued  by
                    the Census Bureau.

    Washington, D. C., August 27, 1912.--A preliminary statement show-
ing by states and geographic divisions the number and proportion of
mulattoes among the Negroes enumerated at the Thirteenth Decennial
Census of the United States, taken as of April 15, 1910, was issued to-
day by director Durand, of the Bureau of Census, Department of Com-
merce and Labor. The statistics were prepared under the direction of
William C. Hunt, chief statistician for population in the Bureau of
Census, and are subject to revision.  The  statement gives comparative
figures for 1870 and 1890, no data being available for 1880 or 1900.
    The term "mulatto," as used in the census of 1910 includes all
persons, not full-blooded negroes, who have some proportion of percep-
tible trace of Negro blood. The Bureau of the Census does not regard
the returns as being beyond question since the classification of Ne-
groes as full-bloods or mulattoes was necessarily to a considerable de-
gree dependent upon the personal opinion and conscientiousness of the
enumerators.    The  results, however,  are believed  to approximate  the
facts for the country as a whole and for large aggregates.
    In 1900 there were in continental United States as a whole, 9,827,763
Negroes, of whom 2,050,686, or 20.9 per cent, were reported as mulattoes.
In 1890 there were 1,132,060 mulattoes reported, or 15.2 per cent. of all
the Negroes, and in 1870 a total of 584,049, or 12 per cent. Thus the
figures taken at their face value show that about one-fifth of all the Ne-
groes in 1910 had some admixture of white blood, as against about one-
eighth in 1870. It may be noted, however, that an increase in the mulatto
element  does  not  necessarily  imply  increasing  intermixture  with  the
whites, since the children born of marriages between blacks and mulattoes
would be mulattoes according to the census definition.
    The percentage of mulattoes reported varies widely in different
states and different sections of the country. It was to be expected that
the percentage would be relatively high in those sections where the Ne-
gro population is small as compared with the total population and would
be higher in the North than in the South. In general the results are in
agreement with this presumption. In New England and in the East
North Central and Pacific divisions about one-third of the Negro popula-
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African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 29, Num. 2

Proportion of Mulattoes in the Negro Population of the U.S.

Volume:  29
Issue Number:  02
Page Number:  137
Date:  10/1912