nd cafes 5
Miscellaneous 48[74]
----
Total 309

Two facts are evident. The largest number of the enterprises are the
outgrowth of the domestic and personal service occupations and they
are mainly enterprises that call for small amounts of capital.

4. OWNERSHIP OF ESTABLISHMENTS

The Negro goes into business mainly as an independent dealer. In the
large majority of cases he does not enter into a partnership and even
when he does, there are rarely more than two partners. Out of the 309
enterprises in 1909, there were only 49 partnerships and 44 of these
were firms of two partners only. There were only three firms with
three partners each, one firm with four members and one with five
members. To these may be added the eight corporations mentioned above.

Some light is thrown upon the Negro's business enterprises by knowing
the birth-place of proprietors, the length of time they had resided in
New York City and the occupations in which the proprietors were
engaged previously to going into business.

The birth-place of proprietors should be considered in connection with
the length of their residence in New York City, because the two facts
point to the same conclusion concerning the economic and other stimuli
of the environment. So far as birth-place is concerned, the most
striking fact is that out of 330 proprietors whose birth-places were
ascertained, 220, or 66.66 per cent, were born in Southern states and
the District of Columbia, and 65, or 19.7 per cent, in the West
Indies. The following Southern states furnished the specified 220
proprietors: Virginia 96, South Carolina 31, Georgia 27, North
Carolina 25, Maryland 15, Florida 12, the District of Columbia 5,
Delaware 3, Kentucky 2, and Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas
1 each. Besides the Southern and West Indian-born Negro business men,
other sections were represented as follows: South America 7, New
Jersey 7, New York State 7, Pennsylvania 5, New York City 8, Illinois
2, Bermuda 2, Canada 2, Africa, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, and
Massachusetts 1 each.

This proportion of Southern-born proprietors is 0.84 of one per cent
less than the proportion of Southern-born in the total Negro
population.[75] The 19.7 per cent West Indian is about 10.3 per cent
larger than the West Indian proportion in the total Negro pop