The importance of this movement to the student of education lies in the fact that it effected an unequal distribution of intelligent Negroes. The most ambitious and enlightened ones were fleeing to free territory. As late as 1840 there were more intelligent blacks in the South than in the North.[1] The number of southern colored people who could read was then decidedly larger than that of such persons found in the free States. The continued migration of Negroes to the North, despite the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, made this distribution more unequal. While the free colored population of the slave States increased only 23,736 from 1850 to 1860, that of the free States increased 29,839. In the South only Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina showed a noticeable increase in the number of free persons of color during the decade immediately preceding the Civil War. This element of the population had only slightly increased in Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. The number of free Negroes of Florida remained practically constant. Those of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas diminished. In the North, of course, the tendency was in the other direction. With the exception of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, which had about the same free colored population in 1860 as they had in 1850, there was a general increase in the number of Negroes in the free States. Ohio led in this respect having had during this period an increase of 11,394.[2] [Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction of the Negroes_, p. 115.] [Footnote 2: See statistics on pages 237-240.] On comparing the educational statistics of these sections this truth becomes more apparent. In 1850 there were 4,354 colored children attending school in the South, but by 1860 this number had dropped to 3,651. Slight increases were noted only in Alabama, Missouri, Delaware, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. Georgia and Mississippi had then practically deprived all Negroes of this privilege. The former, which reported one colored child as attending school in 1850, had just seven in 1860; the latter had none in 1850 and only two in 1860. In all other slave States the number of pupils of African blood had materially decreased.[1] In the free States there were 22,107 colored children in school in 1850, and 28,978 in 1860. Most of these were in New Jersey, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, which in 1860 had 2,741; 5,671; 5,694; and 7,573, respectively.[2] [Footnote 1: STATISTICS OF THE FREE COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1850 ATTENDING ADULTS UNABLE SCHOOL TO READ STATE Population Males Females Total Males Females Total