Z 1-615. General note.

It would have been possible to distribute these series for the colonial and pre-Federal period among the chapters covering each of the appropriate subject fields. It was felt, however, that a separate chapter especially organized to cover this period would be more valuable in itself and would also provide a more suitable, less-exacting context for the statistics, many of which are relatively roughhewn.

In the past, statistics for the colonial and pre-Federal period were largely dependent on compilations made during the 17th and 18th centuries by historians such as Whitworth and Macpherson. Presentday scholars, however, no longer rely solely upon such compilations. They are ferreting out statistical information from original records hitherto left unused in archives and reconstructing statistical series of their own from other sources. Several of the series presented here are appearing in print for the first time. Compilers of the new series are identified in the source citations.

The Public Records Office in London (sometimes hereafter abbreviated PRO) contains many collections of records which throw light on commerce between England and the colonies and to some extent on the development of agriculture and manufacturing in the colonies, particularly when considered with reference to the mercantilist laws passed by the mother country, as has been done here. The laws in question are cited at various points in the text below by reference to their regnal year and chapter numbers--for example, 5 Geo. II c 22 (the fifth year of the reign of King George II, chapter 22).

The collections in the Public Records Office in London, which are the original sources for many of the data presented here, are identified there by title and call numbers. For example, one collection is titled "American Inspector General's Ledgers" and is further identified as "PRO Customs 16/1." The most important of these collections or ledgers of imports and exports are the following: The English Inspector General's Ledgers (PRO Customs 3); the Scottish Inspector General's Ledgers (PRO Customs 14); the American Inspector General's Ledgers (PRO Customs 16/1); and the colonial naval office lists (usually found in C. O. 5).

The English, Scottish, and American Inspector Generals' Ledgers are conveniently arranged for statistical purposes, but are so voluminous that it is far more convenient to utilize contemporary tabulations drawn from them when such secondary sources are available. The lists kept by the naval officers of that period (for the purpose of helping to enforce the navigation laws) merely provide chronological data concerning the ships which entered and cleared port, together with their cargoes and destinations.

The task of using the naval office lists has in some instances been lightened by colonial newspapers, such as the South Carolina Gazette, which published data taken from customhouse records. Also of general assistance in the preparation of many series presented in this chapter are the compilations from naval office lists prepared by a Works Progress Administration project conducted at the University of California, entitled "Trade and Commerce of the English Colonies in America," and referred to below as WPA compilations.

Z 1-19. Estimated population of American Colonies, 1610-1780. Source: Compiled by Stella H. Sutherland, Due West, South Carolina, chiefly from the following sources: B. J. Brawley, A Short History of the American Negro, MacMillan, 1913; Elizabeth Donnan (editor), Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols., Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., 1930-35; Evarts B.

Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790, Columbia University Press, New York, 1932; Stella H. Sutherland, Population Distribution in Colonial America, AMS Press, Inc., New York, 1966; E. R. Turner, "The Negro in Pennsylvania," Prize Essays of the American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., 1911; Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth, 1909; Thomas J. Wertenbaker, The Planters of Colonial Virginia, Princeton, 1922; and George W. Williams, The History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880, 2 vols., New York, 1883. (Also, a wide variety of source material was consulted for general information.)

The original data were obtained from the reports of the colonial officials to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. Not infrequently a census supplied sworn evidence of the number of inhabitants; for other reports, the militia or the tax lists or both were used, commonly accompanied by an estimate of the whole population as indicated by the rolls or lists. Estimates made by colonial officials and by other informed contemporaries who did not disclose the figures upon which their conclusions were based have occasionally been included in these series. However, such estimates were selected in accordance with the general pattern of population growth.

The ratio of the militia to the whole population was generally 1 to 5%, but there were many exceptions. In Massachusetts, it was 1 to 6 in 1751 and 1 to 4 in 1763; in Connecticut, 1 to 6 in 1722 and 1756 and 1 to 7 in 1749, 1761, and 1774; it was 1 to 6 in Virginia and 1 to 7 in South Carolina at various times. No generalization can safely be made as to the ratio borne by the northern polls and ratables and by the southern taxables and tithables to the whole population of the Colonies. In every Province the figure was different. In the North, it ranged from 1 to 4 to 1 to 51⁄2; in Pennsylvania, it was 1 to 7 in the 1750's, but 1 to 5.8 was the more common figure; in Maryland and Virginia, where both male and female slaves appeared on the tax lists, the ratio was 1 to 3 or 3.5 in the 17th century and 1 to 2.4 or 2.6 in the 18th century. The North Carolina white taxables were multiplied by 4 and the Negro taxables by 2. The figures for Negroes for the 17th century, which are doubtlessly too low, are largely estimates based upon references to purchase and sale, to laws governing slavery, and occasionally to reports of more or less exact numbers.

Z 20-23. Percent distribution of the white population, by nationality, 1790.

Source: American Council of Learned Societies, "Report of Committee on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States" (based on studies by Howard F. Barker and Marcus L. Hansen), Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1931, vol. I, Washington, D.C., 1932, p. 124.

Distribution was made primarily on the basis of family names. For explanation of methods used, see source.

Z 24-132.

Population censuses taken in the colonies and States during the colonial and pre-Federal period, 1624-25 to 1786. Source: Compiled by Robert C. Klove, U.S. Bureau of the Census, with the counsel of Stella Sutherland, chiefly from the following sources: Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington, American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790, Columbia University Press, New York, 1932 (reprinted by Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass., 1966) and W. S. Rossiter, A Century of Population Growth, From the