Although New York was predominantly Dutch for more than one hundred years after they first began settling the area, the Dutch population growth was slow. This was primarily due to factors like low migration levels and the preponderance of single males arriving without the family unit typical of colonists in British America.[xx] By 1800 the population of Kings County had only grown by about 2,000 people and the slave population was nearly 1,500.[xxi] Only forty years later, the demographics of Kings County were entirely different.
According to the census data from 1840, the total population in Kings County had exploded to 47,613 inhabitants, and there were only 3 slaves in the entire county. Some 96 of the whites living in Kings County were literate, perhaps due to the 76 schools the county boasted.[xxii]
