more blacks in the USA

last night I was watching a news show and a Professor of African-American Studies at Princeton noted that one of the issues with Race today is a perception gap stated that when polled white people most of the time think that Black Americans make up 25-30% of all Americans the truth is blacks are only 12.8% of Americans, the highest it's ever been is in 1790 at 19.3% of the population

so what POD could bring blacks up to 25-30% of the population and how does that change American history?
 
Hm... of course it'd bring some trouble when slavery is abolished in the north. I mean, there'd be much more slaves in the south.
 
Maybe if more of the South is colonized earlier by the British, and they bring more slaves to fill the new plantations, while the White immigration remain pretty much the same, then you might have that percentage, maybe even more.
 
It was brought up in this thread (by Shawn) that the slave population OTL more than doubled from imports from 1798-1807. So there's that to work with...

Not sure where Shawn came up with that number but it is off by a long shot. OTL slave population in 1800 was approx 900,000 and approx 1.2 million in 1810. Not close to doubling and most of the growth is from natural increase, not importation.
 
Do you means Blacks or African Americans or Africans? Considering that a sizeable number of those in the US with mixed anscestry bewteen white people and black people. Around 20% of European-Americans have black anscesstry and the majority of 'African-Americans' have European dna in them as well.
 
Do you means Blacks or African Americans or Africans? Considering that a sizeable number of those in the US with mixed anscestry bewteen white people and black people. Around 20% of European-Americans have black anscesstry and the majority of 'African-Americans' have European dna in them as well.

:rolleyes:
race has nothing to do with DNA its they way you look to others(and yourself) that defines your race not what the code of your DNA says Obama will always be black while Harding will always be white.

so Blacks if you want to be picky about your racial terms
 
:rolleyes:
race has nothing to do with DNA its they way you look to others(and yourself) that defines your race not what the code of your DNA says Obama will always be black while Harding will always be white.

so Blacks if you want to be picky about your racial terms
Obama is half white.
 
Obama is half white.

and if you didn't know him and he walked by you on the street you'd think "oh there's a black man"

black and white is how other's see you, maybe a little how you see yourself, half-white half-black is silliness because there isn't such a thing as white or black they are made up racial terms put in place with on base in reality they've taken on a life of their own but really again race=how people see you
 
I got it from "Road to Disunion: secessionists at bay 1796-1857", one of the books I go back to often. However, I agree that robertp's numbers seem more plausible (I suspect statistical chicanery).

The degree to which an increase in slave births is "natural" has some pretty nasty possibilities, given the owner's profit motive and the slave's lack of legal and customary rights. That is, unfortunately, a number which can assume some pretty unnatural highs when the money's good enough.

But the basic idea remains the most sound; to have more African-Americans, fiddle with the date at which the slave trade became illegal or impractical. You can get a few more by conquering Cuba, Haiti etc - but the USA isn't going to conquer Brazil or colonize Africa.
 
But the basic idea remains the most sound; to have more African-Americans, fiddle with the date at which the slave trade became illegal or impractical. You can get a few more by conquering Cuba, Haiti etc - but the USA isn't going to conquer Brazil or colonize Africa.

I fully agree. Let the cotton gin be invented earlier, at best still under British rule. This will make slavery more profitable. It should therefore increase colonization of the South as well as slave imports. Then have by whatever means the British get Cuba or Hispaniola, which joins the US right from the start with its substantial black population. This should be simpler than the US conquering these islands.

Another possibility is Louisiana: have more immigration and plantations there under French or Spanish rule.

Note also that such scenarios most likely imply that slavery is more widespread in the US. We'd probably have a majority of slave states in the early years.
 
In looking at the the census figures for 1790, what is interesting is that the overall populations of the "free states" (that term really doesn't apply in 1790 - but by this I mean the states that we think of as being the free states) and the slave states is almost identical. The free states had a population of 1,968,154 and the slave states had a population of 1,961,172. It would never be this close again; however, it wasn't until the 1830s with the increase in immigration, that the free states really started to pull away in terms of population. Also, the percentage of the population that was slave in 1790 was 17.8%. Of course the percentage of slaves in the slave states was probably close to 35% at that time.

What is also interesting is that both New York and New Jersey's populations in 1790 were 6%+ slave. That figure just blew me away. I had no idea that so many slaves existed at that time in these "free" states. Of course over the next 20 years, slavery had pretty much been abolished in the free states. But, if slavery had been more prevalent in these free states in 1790, say something like 15% of the populations of NY, NJ, and Penn were enslaved, we could have seen a much larger free black population in the North during the first half of the 19th century - provided that these free states still emancipated their slaves.

What if the free black population of the North in 1860 was 10 - 15% of the overall population? How would this demographic changed history?
 
That would require some pretty interesting and radical changes in Northern culture; the North's abolition laws were uncompensated but delayed, generally giving the slaveowner 5 years to sell their slaves out of state. All those New York and New Jersey slaves were not freed, they were involuntarily relocated south. What changes that?
 
The US could probably get the needed millions by pursuing an early course of empire in the Caribbean. The addition of Hispaniola and Cuba would dramatically increase America's black population, in addition to create multiple black majority states.
 
The US could probably get the needed millions by pursuing an early course of empire in the Caribbean. The addition of Hispaniola and Cuba would dramatically increase America's black population, in addition to create multiple black majority states.

we had those any ways, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
 
we had those any ways, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

That is also true

The problem is that annexations are the easiest ways to quickly, and radically change the population ratio. Even early immigration restrictions would keep the US from reaching the 25% black sweet spot
 
Another, more recent, method could be more liberal immigration laws in the 20th century, which could prompt more Africans to emigrate. Especially if decolonization goes crappy like it has a tendency of doing, you could see more 'huddles masses' at American doorsteps.
 
Another, more recent, method could be more liberal immigration laws in the 20th century, which could prompt more Africans to emigrate. Especially if decolonization goes crappy like it has a tendency of doing, you could see more 'huddles masses' at American doorsteps.

so no Quota Act? hmmmmm well a lot more Jews in the USA, no Israel? hmmm major African immigration from 1950 forward, I like this idea
 
so no Quota Act? hmmmmm well a lot more Jews in the USA, no Israel? hmmm major African immigration from 1950 forward, I like this idea

Hmm, imagine if HIV/AIDS comes to the US through African immigrants (rather than the gay flight attendant theory), and is initially spread through the new African immigrant community? Scapegoating African immigrants, talking about concentration camps for Africans . . . distinctions between good ol' Christian blacks and dirty drug-ridden Muslim terrorist AIDS-infested African Americans?

Dystopic.
 
Hmm, imagine if HIV/AIDS comes to the US through African immigrants (rather than the gay flight attendant theory), and is initially spread through the new African immigrant community? Scapegoating African immigrants, talking about concentration camps for Africans . . . distinctions between good ol' Christian blacks and dirty drug-ridden Muslim terrorist AIDS-infested African Americans?

Dystopic.

the first cases were in the 1950s-1960s the POD is 1921 so I'm not sure HIV would even be around
 
Top