Intra-Group Differences among Afro-Americans in the Rural North: Paulding County, Ohio: 1860-1900

Abstract

Afro-Americans like other ethnic groups in the United States often consist of divergent sub-groups. This study attempts to bring a clearer understanding of Afro-Americans by viewing them in terms of their sub-groups and not as a whole people. These sub-groups were formed on the basis of birthplace and skin color and can be seen as predictors of certain socio-economic characteristics. For too long many scholars have tended to view Afro-Americans as a socially and culturally monolithic people. These scholars have either assumed that slavery, discrimination, and skin color welded Afro-Americans into a homogeneous people or if the scholars did recognize significant differences among Afro-Americans they did not want these differences discussed for fear of causing conflicts (Hershberg 1974). Scholarly discussion of intra-group color prejudice, especially, was suppressed in the fear that pointing out intra-group discrimination would handicap efforts to combat inter-group discrimination. To show that Mulattoes were better off than Blacks, some believed, would only fuel the racist argument of genetic superiority. Such an argument, as put forth by Reuter (1969), maintains that having White Blood makes Mulattoes more successful than Blacks. Ignoring intra-group differences in the Afro-American community, however, reduces our understanding of how different segments of that community really function. Lost with such an analysis is the diversity of social and cultural adaptive strategies that have been chosen by Afro-Americans. In an effort to reverse this scholarly trend, the present analysis examines demographic and structural diversity among a rural AfroAmerican population in northwest Ohio at the end of the 19th century. 1 More specifically, the study illustrates the utility of census data for establishing patterns of association among demographic variables such as place of birth and color. This study is designed to be more suggestive than definitive, pointing the way to new topics to be explored by ethnohistorical methodologies. ETHNOHISTORY 27/1 (Winter 1980) 79 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.25 on Tue, 02 Aug 2016 06:10:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 80 KENNETH W. GOINGS Population Selection and Method Paulding County, Ohio was chosen as the area of study for three principal reasons. First, during the 19th century, Paulding County contained no urban centers, here defined as communities of 2,500 or more people. Second, the Afro-American population of the county remained small enough to be studied in its entirety, ranging from a low of 134 persons in 1860 to a high of 867 persons in 1890. And third, the Afro-American population averaged roughly three to five percent of the total county population, a figure that is typical of many other nonurban northern areas during this period. Based on these criteria, it is suggested that the findings of this analysis are both valid for this population and for other areas of the rural North during this time period. The primary data for this study are derived from the United States Census individual population schedules. The study begins in 1860 when the first Afro-Americans appeared on the census for Paulding County and ends in 1900 which is the last year of the census available for public use. Unfortunately, the manuscript census of population schedules for 1890 were destroyed. Paulding County's Afro-American Population