"The keen and practiced eye of Southern men can instantly detect the most remote admixture of African blood... But here at the North, the boundary line is less distinct; the colored white has merely to change his place of abode, cut his old associates, and courtesy will do the rest--he is white. There is no path in literature or science in my State in which I could not point out very distinguished colored men . Of the one hundred boys who attended with me the New York African Free School in 1826-7, I could name six now living --all white....
"During the last thirty years the northern States have been the scene of a silent struggle . The combatants have been and are, in the one hand, the great Anglo-Saxon race , the Irish people, and the Berserkirs (I have borrowed the term from Mr. Emerson), having in their possession the 'arts of war and peace,' their numbers swelled by an immigration of 23,000 per year , which has fallen into rank and file by naturalization and enfranchising laws---on the other hand are the free blacks, taught to believe themselves naturally inferior, barely admitted to common school instruction , shut out from the temples of higher literature , and taunted with ignorance, barred from the jury bench and driven from what are called churches , yet branded with impiety. This has been no trifling conflict . The Indian race have perished in a like encounter . It has severely tried the vitality of the free blacks, whilst the slaves of the South have had no such battle to fight in their struggle for bread . This should show the percentage of longevity in favor of the slaves, other things being equal....
"Longevity is an admitted test of relative condition. Take two classes of people equal in other respects, and place them in like condition, their longevity will be equal. Place the same classes of persons in different conditions, and that condition which yields less longevity will be the 'worse' condition . By the census of 1840...
"It follows that slavery has actually destroyed at the very least 7.19 percent of the slave population. Had the slaves been in no worse condition than the free blacks of the North, instead of numbering only 2, 487, 355 in June 1840, they would have numbered 2,666,440; the difference , 179,085, having been MURDERED by the system of slavery. "...
"There is corroborative evidence in the annals of this city. Dr. Niles states that in 1824, '5, and '6, the deaths among the free black population of this city were 1 in 18.88. By the city inspector's report for 1840, I find that deaths for the same class were only 1 in 32.16. Slavery was abolished , or terminated in New York in 1827; and a large proportion of those who died in 1825, &c. were slaves recently emancipated . These facts prove that within fifteen years after it became a free State, a portion of the free black population of New York have improved the ratio of their mortality 75 percent --a fact without parallel in the history of any people. "
P. 62-4, "Vital Statistics," THE WORKS OF JAMES MCCUNE SMITH: BLACK ABOLITIONIST AND INTELLECTUAL , edited by John Stauffer (2006)
Saturday, December 26, 2015
JAMES MCCUNE SMITH "VITAL STATISTICS"
"The keen and practiced eye of Southern men can instantly detect the most remote admixture of African blood... But here at the North, the boundary line is less distinct; the colored white has merely to change his place of abode, cut his old associates, and courtesy will do the rest--he is white. There is no path in literature or science in my State in which I could not point out very distinguished colored men . Of the one hundred boys who attended with me the New York African Free School in 1826-7, I could name six now living --all white....
"During the last thirty years the northern States have been the scene of a silent struggle . The combatants have been and are, in the one hand, the great Anglo-Saxon race , the Irish people, and the Berserkirs (I have borrowed the term from Mr. Emerson), having in their possession the 'arts of war and peace,' their numbers swelled by an immigration of 23,000 per year , which has fallen into rank and file by naturalization and enfranchising laws---on the other hand are the free blacks, taught to believe themselves naturally inferior, barely admitted to common school instruction , shut out from the temples of higher literature , and taunted with ignorance, barred from the jury bench and driven from what are called churches , yet branded with impiety. This has been no trifling conflict . The Indian race have perished in a like encounter . It has severely tried the vitality of the free blacks, whilst the slaves of the South have had no such battle to fight in their struggle for bread . This should show the percentage of longevity in favor of the slaves, other things being equal....
"Longevity is an admitted test of relative condition. Take two classes of people equal in other respects, and place them in like condition, their longevity will be equal. Place the same classes of persons in different conditions, and that condition which yields less longevity will be the 'worse' condition . By the census of 1840...
"It follows that slavery has actually destroyed at the very least 7.19 percent of the slave population. Had the slaves been in no worse condition than the free blacks of the North, instead of numbering only 2, 487, 355 in June 1840, they would have numbered 2,666,440; the difference , 179,085, having been MURDERED by the system of slavery. "...
"There is corroborative evidence in the annals of this city. Dr. Niles states that in 1824, '5, and '6, the deaths among the free black population of this city were 1 in 18.88. By the city inspector's report for 1840, I find that deaths for the same class were only 1 in 32.16. Slavery was abolished , or terminated in New York in 1827; and a large proportion of those who died in 1825, &c. were slaves recently emancipated . These facts prove that within fifteen years after it became a free State, a portion of the free black population of New York have improved the ratio of their mortality 75 percent --a fact without parallel in the history of any people. "
P. 62-4, "Vital Statistics," THE WORKS OF JAMES MCCUNE SMITH: BLACK ABOLITIONIST AND INTELLECTUAL , edited by John Stauffer (2006)