In all such commonwealths
except Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi there was an
increase in illiteracy among the free blacks. These States, however,
were hardly exceptional, because Arkansas and Mississippi had suffered
a decrease in their free colored population, that of Florida had
remained the same, and the difference in the case of Louisiana was
very slight. The statistics of the Northern States indicate just the
opposite trend. Notwithstanding the increase of persons of color
resulting from the influx of the migrating element, there was in all
free States exclusive of California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania a decrease in the illiteracy of Negroes. But
these States hardly constitute exceptions; for California, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota had very few colored inhabitants in 1850, and the others
had during this decade received so many fugitives in the rough that
race prejudice and its concomitant drastic legislation impeded the
educational progress of their transplanted freedmen.[1] In the
Northern States where this condition did not obtain, the benevolent
whites had, in cooeperation with the Negroes, done much to reduce
illiteracy among them during these years.
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