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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 5. Race and Ancestry - 8. Social and Biological Selection - 9. Present and Future Genetic Composition Trends
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132 An American Dilemma
tivity have been claimed (such as the presumed selective migration of
superior Negroes to the cities, where the birth rate is low),®® these have
thus far no basis in demonstrated facts.
Length of residence of different elements of the Negro population in
the United States must have had an influence on the genetic composition
of the American Negro people. Because the Negro net reproduction rate
has, until recently, been far above unity—so that a given group of American
’Negroes has always more than reproduced itself in the next generation
—
the earlier a certain element has entered the American Negro population,
the greater the proportion of the total Negro population does this element
form,® in relation to its original size. This factor operates on the genetic
distribution of the descendants of the various African races in favor of the
^^true Negroes” from the West Coast, since Africans outside this latter group
were probably not brought to America in significant numbers until the
nineteenth century. The factor also makes less important the relative num-
bers of Negroes coming via the West Indies, who also did not come in
significant numbers until relatively recently. It also enhances the genetic
significance of the earlier interracial sex contacts with the Indians and the
indentured white servants brought from Europe in the seventeenth century.
Finally, it makes more important the interracial sex contacts with the North
and West Europeans that occurred in the earlier days than those with South
and East Europeans that have tended to become relatively more numerous
since the Civil War.
9. Present and Future Genetic Composition Trends
Everything said so far about the racial character of the slaves originally
imported, about miscegenation and passing in this country, and about the
various general factors which have influenced the American Negro stock,
has been highly conjectural and speculative. Summing up this unsatisfactory
knowledge can hardly lead to anything more than an expectation that the
American Negro people should show up as a considerably mixed population
group. It is the merit of Professor Melville J. Herskovits®® that he has
finally approached this problem directly and, taking his departure in
anthropometric research of the present Negro group in America and its
genealogy, has tried to ascertain the actual composition of the group.
Herskovits^ most significant finding was that 71.7 per cent of his presum-
ably representative sample of 1,551 Negroes had knowledge of some white
ancestry, and that 27.2 per cent knew of some Indian ancestry.®^ Hersko-
vits claims that his sample is representative because the groups of Negroes
from various sections of the country were found to be similar in several
* The element need not have remained intact in certain family lines, of course. The
statement in the text refers to the proportion of genes in the Negro population, therefore,
and not to the proportion of persons.
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