The 1870 United States Census and Black Underenumeration:
A Test Case from North Carolina
Authors
Richard Reid
Abstract
This study of underenumeration in North Carolina demonstrates some of the
limitations of the 1870 United States census, especially for researchers investigating
the African-American population. The author assesses the uniform undercount found
in most mid-nineteenth-century American censuses and examines the probable
further underenumeration of a sampie of black North Carolinians drawn from three
sources of black Union veterans known to have been living in North Carolina in
1870. However, this group's extensive use of aliases and altered names creates
problems for researchers trying to track individuals in the manuscript census and
other records.
