The numerical growth of the Negro population in America indicates his economic importance. The exact number of slaves exported to America will never be known. Probably 25,000 Negroes a year arrived in America between 1698 and 1707. After 1713 this rose to 30,000 and by 1775 to over 40,000 a year. The American Revolution stopped the trade, but it was revived afterward and reached enormous proportions. One estimate is that a million Negroes came in the sixteenth century, three million in the seventeenth, seven million in the eighteenth and four million in the nineteenth or fifteen million in all. Certainly at least ten million came and this meant sixty million killed and stolen in Africa because of the methods of capture and the horror of the middle passage. This, with the Asiatic trade, cost black Africa a hundred million souls.[55] Bancroft places the total slave population of the continental colonies at 59,000 in 1714, 78,000 in 1727, and 293,000 in 1754. In the West Indies the whole laboring population early became Negro or Negro with an infiltration of Indian and white blood. In the United States at the beginning of our independent national existence, Negroes formed a fifth of the population of the whole nation. The exact figures are:[56] PERCENTAGE NEGRO IN THE POPULATION United States South 1920 9.9 26.1 1910 10.7 29.8 1900 11.6 32.3 1890 11.9 33.8 1880 13.1 36.0 1870 12.7 36.0 1860 14.1 36.8 1850 15.7 37.3 1840 16.8 38.0 1830 18.1 37.9 1820 18.4 37.2 1810 19.0 36.7 1800 18.9 35.0 1790 19.3 35.2 If we consider the number of Negroes for each 1,000 whites, we have: United States South 1920 110 369 1910 120 426 1900 132 480 1890 136 512 1880 152 564 1870 145 562 1860 165 582 1850 186 595 1840 203 613 1830 221 610 1820 225 592 1810 235 579 1800 233 539 1790 239 543