U.S. Census Office, Distribution of the Colored Population of the United States (1898)

This choropleth map, published in the 1890 Statistical Atlas of the United States under the direction of Henry Gannett, illustrates the distribution of the "colored" population of the United States in 1890. Darker shading on the map indicates higher population concentrations. In this visualization, the category “colored” includes individuals of African descent, as well as Chinese, Japanese, and Indigenous peoples. Notably, the 1890 Census was the first time the government included the Indigenous population. The map reveals that approximately 90 percent of the Black population lived in the southern states (Gannett, p. 19). This population pattern reflects the South’s history of slavery, which had been abolished only a few decades earlier. The highest concentrations appear along the Mississippi River and in states such as South Carolina and Louisiana.