The future of the colored race no one could predict with certainty. After the census of 1870, which reduced the percentage of our African population from 14.13, the figure in 1860, to 12.7, many rushed to the conclusion that these people might, in no long time, vanish from our land. The census of 1880 dispelled this fancy, raising the percentage to 13.12. That of 1890 lowered it again to 11.93. Previously to 1870 the race had been constantly decreasing in fecundity, but it was possible that the better conditions afforded by freedom had changed this. Even should the decrease go on, the colored people bade fair to be at least eight or ten per cent. of our total population in 1900. As a matter of fact the proportion was in 1900 11.6 per cent. These decreasing proportions did not, of course, necessarily imply any positive decadence in the black race, as they might be accounted for by greater prolificacy or vitality on the part of the whites, or in part by immigration. The subject will be resumed in Chapter IX. of Period VI. CHAPTER V. THE WEST Aside from West Virginia, made during the war from the loyal part of Virginia, the new States created between 1860 and 1900 were Kansas, 1861; Nevada, 1864; Nebraska, 1867; Colorado, 1876; North Dakota, 1889; South Dakota, 1889; Montana, 1889; Washington, 1889; Idaho, 1890; Wyoming, 1890; and Utah, 1896. The whole number of States had thus become forty-five. We had also, in the year 1896, three organized territories, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the last carved out of Indian Territory in the year 1890. Alaska was as yet a partially organized territory, having no territorial legislature, and being under the laws of the United States and of the State of Oregon. It was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867, for the sum of $7,200,000. It remained without any organization until the act of May 17, 1884, which gave it a governor, a district court, an attorney, a marshal, and commissioners. [Illustration: Swampy area on shore of Lake Michigan.] The Site of Chicago. The value to our Union of this new acquisition, with its 531,409 square miles and a coast-line longer than that upon our Atlantic and Gulf coasts together, was at first doubtful, and continued so till gold was found on the Yukon and at Cape Nome. Clearly, however, the money had not been thrown away. Governor Swineford, appointed over the Territory in 1885, declared that throughout Southern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands the climate was moderate, even in winter; and he gave records of thermometrical observations which seemed to prove this. He further maintained that, in the parts named, all our hardier plants and crops grew to maturity in summer, and attained extraordinary luxuriance. In 1890, 4,298 white people had homes in Alaska, besides 1,823 mixed, 23,531 Indians, and 2,288 Mongolians, a total population of 32,052.