es themselves had during these years been
boldly asserting their rights and demanding to be elevated, they had
been losing ground, sinking into meaner occupations and less
lucrative employments. He believed that the day was not far when every
desirable business in the city would be entirely monopolized by the
whites because of the rapid influx of foreigners who had to labor or
serve and knew how to toil to advantage, to the extent that they could
make their labor more valuable than that of the people of color.[18]

In things economic, however, the free Negroes of New York made
considerable improvement after 1845; a decided improvement in this
respect was noted by 1851. So evident was this progress that the
colonizationists who had repeatedly referred to the poverty of the
Negroes and the prejudice against them in the laboring world as a
reason why they should migrate to Africa, thereafter ceased to say
very much about their poverty, shifting their complaint rather to
social proscription. In 1851 a contributor to _The African
Repository_, the organ of the American Colonization Society, discussed
the situation of the 48,000 free Negroes of New York. Directing his
attention to the 14,000 living in the metropolis, the editor said that
the condition of 4,000 of them approached that of comfort; 1,000 of
the number having substantial wealth, or that one out of every ten was
in a pleasant and enviable social condition. As this pessimist was
compelled to concede that this was not a bad showing for an oppressed
people he goes off on another line, saying: "Everywhere the Negro,
whatever his wealth or education or talents, is excluded from social
equality and social freedom."[19]

There were many instances of individual enterprise, however, but these
often meant little since Negroes had such a little knowledge of
business that white persons often defrauded them out of what they
accumulated. Sojourner Truth accumulated more than enough money to
supply her wants, but lost some of it by depositing it in a bank
without taking account of the sum which she deposited and without
asking for the interest when she drew her money from the bank.[20]
One Pierson persuaded her to take her money out of the bank and invest
it in a common fund which he was raising to be drawn upon by all needy
and faithful free Negroes.[21] Her savings, therefore, served to
increase this fund, which instead of relieving the economic condition
of many needy free N