The slave population of 2,369 in 1790 dwindled to 518 by 1820. African Americans declined as a percentage of New York’s total population (from 8.8 percent to 6.9 percent over the 1820s), reflecting the quickening pace of European immigration. But the absolute number of blacks in the city grew substantially, from 3,262 in 1790 to 13,976 by 1830, as freedpeople flocked in from surrounding rural regions.
