Owing to this steady importation
there was a constant intermingling of raw stock from the jungles with
the negroes who had been slaves in America for several generations.
In 1860 there were 4,441,830 negroes in the United States, of whom
only 488,070 were free. About thirteen per cent of the total number
were mulattoes. Among the four million slaves were men and women of
every gradation of experience with civilization, from those who had
just disembarked from slave ships to those whose ancestry could be
traced to the earliest days of the colonies. It was not, therefore, a
strictly homogeneous people upon whom were suddenly and dramatically
laid the burdens and responsibilities of the freedman. Among the
emancipated blacks were not a few in whom there still throbbed
vigorously the savage life they had but recently left behind and who
could not yet speak intelligible English. Though there were many who
were skilled in household arts and in the useful customary
handicrafts, large numbers were acquainted only with the simplest toil
of the open fields. There were a few free blacks who possessed
property, in some instances to the value of many thousands of
dollars, but the great bulk were wholly inexperienced in the
responsibilities of ownership. There were some who had mastered the
rudiments of learning and here and there was to be found a gifted
mind, but ninety per cent of the negroes were unacquainted with
letters and were strangers to even the most rudimentary learning.
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