The relative rate of increase of the white and coloured population of the Southern States during the last decade is a matter of such general importance and interest as to demand special attention. What is termed the race, count has, therefore, been made for the South Atlantic and South Central States, and for Missouri and Kansas, in advance of the main work of tabulation. As will be seen from the accompanying tables, the total population embraced in this count is 23, 875, 259, of which 16, 868, 205 were white, 6, 996, 166 coloured, and 10, 888 Chinese, Japanese, and Indians. In the States herewith included were found in 1890 fifteen-sixteenths of the entire coloured population of the United States, so that for the purpose of immediately ascertaining the percentage of increase the returns of these States are adequate and not likely to be materially affected by the returns of the other States and territories, where the coloured population is small.

The abnormal increase of the coloured population in what is known as the Black Belt during the decade ending 1880 led to the popular belief that the negroes were increasing at a much greater rate than the white population. This error was a natural one, and arose from the difficulty of ascertaining how much of the increase shown by the Tenth Census was real, and how much was due to the omissions of the census of 1870.