Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — WEALTHY NEGROES. [ARTICLE]

WEALTHY NEGROES.

Millions of Dollars Owned by the Colored People of This Country. amount of wealth owned by negroes in this country is not generally realized, and when it is said that this aggregates about $250,000,000 most people will be greatly surprised. From carefully culled satisfies it is an authentic fact that in Louisiana the colored population pays 25 per cent, of all taxes' In that most dreaded of all slave States, Georgia, the former slave class owns $8,000,000 in real property. Even the satistics of South Carolina reveal $10,000,000 of property in the names of her former bondsmen. Alabama, which includes the heart of “the Black Belt,” accredits $12,000,000 of taxable property to its colored citizens. The late Dr. P. A. White, a prominent druggist of New York, left an estate valued at $6,000,000; he used to do an annual business of $200,000. In Washington, D. C., thirty or forty colored residents own $1,000,000. In Baltimore there are nineteen who are estimated to be worth $1,000,000 also. In the City of Brotherly Love John McKee is said to own four-hun-dred houses and other property, worth in all $500,000. Isaiah C, Wears, of the same city, has a comfortable bank account, and has for the past twenty years bought a house each year. Richard Grant and Mrs. John Jones, of Chicago, are each worth $70,000. These are all individual effort, and furnish abundant evidence to certify the progress of the race since emancipation. In the Savings Bank at Charleston, S. C., there is to the credit of colored depositors about $125,000. Two colored banks in AVashington, D. C., have been able to stand through the late financial panic. At Pine Bluff, Ark., the street railroad system is owned by a negro. In Marysville, Cal., twelve colored citizens own ranches valued at SIBO,000, besides owning the signature which controls comfortable hank accounts. In San Francisco, a colored woman owns eight houses, a ranch near San Mateo and SIOO,OOO in government bends. Twenty-seven colored citizens of Missouri have accumulated a fortune of $1,000,000, in amounts ranging from $20,000 to $500,000. By retrieving several severe financial losses A. G. White, of St. Louis, a noted purveyor, has acquired, a capital of $30,000. In the former hot-bed of slavery, Kentucky, negroes own 200,000 acres of land, 8,000 town lots and 52,000 head of stock, the whole valued at $4,000,000. Nor has the acquirement of wealth by negroes been confined to the late slaveholding States. In eight counties of lowa, they own property estimated to be worth $750,000, a per capita of S2OO as against $164 in the former slave States.