White Categorization

Beginning of Duality

As the colonies were forming their first government it was decided in Article I, section 2 of the ratified Constitution that individuals of the United States would be counted or enumerated to levy taxes. Those to be counted were determined to be free people and indentured servants (those bound by contract to servitude for a number of years) and would exclude Indians and three-fifths of all other persons. The Constitution determined that the first census would take place within three years of the initial meeting and continue every 10 years or every decennial.

While the determination appears simple enough, great debates went into what went into this article and how it would be implemented. The three-fifths clause was one term that engendered much debate in the past, as it does today. The basic point of the three-fifths rule was to determine how many enslaved people would count in the census. One belief was to interpret the clause to mean that black people were less important than white people. Slavery was a point of contention between many representives of the northern and southern states. Those who did not want slavery to continue did not want to count black slaves, and congressmen who wanted to continue slavery wanted enslaved people to count equally so as to determine state representation in the new government.

The northern states were more heavily populated and would end up with more representation if the black population were not in the count and could work to abolish slavery. The southern states had a much smaller white population and would lose their voice to continue slavery if the black population did not count. Hence, the compromise known as the three-fifths rule. Regardless which belief one chooses, this rule continues to drive debates over racial inequality today because in the end the categories to determine how someone “counted” or did not “count” would initially be based on skin color.

Deceptive Choices

The first U.S. census took place in 1790, one year after George Washington was named president, and consisted of six questions. The questions included the name of each head of household and the number of people in each household. Further descriptions were required to list the number of free white males over and under the age of 16 for the purpose of military conscription. Additionally, free white females were counted and all other free persons were listed by sex and color, as well as enslaved people living on the premises. These initial questions related to name, address, age, sex, and color/race are the only questions that exist on all 23 administrations of census data from 1790 to 2010. Hence, these questions led to the initial category of race with two choices: white or black.

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