In the following pages an effort is made to give fresh treatment to the history of the Negro people in the United States, and to present this from a distinct point of view, the social. It is now forty years since George W. Williams completed his History of the Negro Race in America, and while there have been many brilliant studies of periods or episodes since that important work appeared, no one book has again attempted to treat the subject comprehensively, and meanwhile the race has passed through some of its most critical years in America. The more outstanding political phases of the subject, especially in the period before the Civil War, have been frequently considered; and in any account of the Negro people themselves the emphasis has almost always been upon political and military features. Williams emphasizes this point of view, and his study of legal aspects is not likely soon to be superseded.