397 11 9 20 34 24 58
Vermont 718 58 32 90 32 19 51
Virginia 54,333 37 27 64 5,141 6,374 11,515
Wisconsin 635 32 35 67 55 37 92
District of
Columbia 10,059 232 235 467 1,106 2,108 3,214
Minnesota 30 0 2 2 0 0 0
New Mexico 207 0 0 0 0 0 0
Oregon 24 2 0 2 3 2 5
Utah 22 0 0 0 1 0 1

Total 434,495 13,864 12,597 26,461 40,722 49,800 90,522

See Sixth Census of the United States, 1850.]

[Footnote 2: See statistics on pages 237-240.]

The report on illiteracy shows further the differences resulting from
the divergent educational policies of the two sections. In 1850 there
were in the slave States 58,444 adult free Negroes who could not read,
and in 1860 this number had reached 59,832. In all such commonwealths
except Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi there was an
increase in illiteracy among the free blacks. These States, however,
were hardly exceptional, because Arkansas and Mississippi had suffered
a decrease in their free colored population, that of Florida had
remained the same, and the difference in the case of Louisiana was
very slight. The statistics of the Northern States indicate just the
opposite trend. Notwithstanding the increase of persons of color
resulting from the influx of the migrating element, there was in all
free States exclusive of California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania a decrease in the illiteracy of Negroes. But
these States hardly constitute exceptions; for California, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota had very few colored inhabitants in 1850, and the others
had during this decade received so many fugitives in the rough that
race prejudice and its concomitant drastic legislation impeded the
educational progress of their transplanted freedmen.[1] In the
Northern States where this condition did not obtain, the benevolent
whites had, in cooeperation with the Negroes, done much to reduce
illiteracy among them during these years.

[Footnote 1: STATISTICS OF THE FREE COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED
STATES IN 1860

STATE Population| ATTENDING SCHOOL | ADULTS UNABLE TO READ
+----- +-----