on with the numbers and economic standards of the free
Negroes. In 1836 in New Orleans alone the freedmen numbered 855, owned
620 slaves, and held property whose assessed value equaled
$2,462,470.[9] By 1860 the total number of free Negroes was 487,970,
or about one ninth of the entire black population;[10] but the
majority of these freedmen were in the rural districts, whereas the
educational opportunities were in the cities, so that in 1863, with
only 5 per cent of the Negro population literate the problem was
indeed difficult, as far as the education of the black race was
concerned.

The next period in the education of the Negro was a decade of the
establishment of schools by the carpet-bag governments, mission
societies, and the Freedmen's Bureau. Some of the schools established
by the Negro carpet-baggers became very efficient. For example, in
Florida, Jonathan C. Gibbs, a Negro graduate of Dartmouth, succeeded
in founding in that State a splendid system of schools, which remained
even after the fall of the carpet-bag governments.[11] The American
Missionary Association was the first benevolent organization to take
up the work of education. The plan of this association was to
establish one school of higher learning in each of the larger States
in the South; normal and graded schools in the principal cities; and
common and parochial schools in the smaller country places. As a
result of this program, the principal institutions established were
Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, Fisk University, Straight
University, Talladega College, Tougaloo University, and Tillston
College.[12] The American Baptist Home Mission Society started work in
1862, which resulted in eight schools: Atlanta Baptist College and
Virginia Union University for men; Spelman Seminary and Hartshorn
Memorial College for women; and the coeducational institutions, Bishop
College, Benedict College, Shaw University, and Jackson College.[13]
In 1866, just before the beginning of the work of the Freedmen's
Bureau in education, the schools so far established had in attendance
nearly 100,000.[14] The Freedmen's Bureau had been established in 1865
by an act of Congress and by 1867 it reported 1,056 Negro teachers and
in 1870 the number was increased to 1,342. During the five years of
its work, this bureau established 4,239 schools in the South, with a
total number of teachers of 9,307 and of students, 247,333.[15]
Howard University, established in 1867,