I am not trying to start a big debate, but I have always read maybe on forums such as these or the History channel whatever, that not that many Southern Soldiers owned slaves and perhaps this is correct. I stumbled onto this site which is an 1860 census of a Mississippi County and the number after the name is the number of slaves owned by that person. Seems like a lot of people owned slaves. Just curious as to everyones thoughts. Posted on this forum since it is the most civil.

http://ccharity.com/mississippi/noxubeeslave.htm

Hope this link works...

Hank has posted the 1860 slave information from aformentioned census. And, if I remember correctly, all northern states save one had slaves. And, there were something like 400,00 in Washington City alone! I'm pretty sure there were more slaves in the south, at least in some states, than there were owners and non owners.

This is not really an explanation as much as it is a little something to add to the discussion.  The land that gets the heaviest agricultural use in Mississippi is referred to as the Delta.  This is land adjacent to the Mississippi River between Vicksburg, MS, and Memphis, TN.  The next is an area known as the Black Prairie region.  Noxubee County Mississippi is in this Black Prairie region.  Cotton is/was a labor intensive crop.  Perhaps that accounts for the number of slaves.  The county immediately south of Noxubee County is one of the poorest agriculture wise in the state because it did not benefit from the same kind of soil.

Guys,

I went on line and got some interesting information from the 1860 Census. Probably the most interesting thing was the growth of the Country between 1850 and 1860. During that ten year period, our population increased 35.4%, from 23,191,876 in 1850, to 31,400,000 in 1860. Most of that growth was in the North and Mid-west.

I looked at two states for a comparison, Virginia and Mississippi. One of the new deep south States and one of the original old southern States.

Virginia had 56,949 free Black people, which was the highest number in the Nation, followed by Pennsylvania. Mississippi had only 773 free Black people. Virginia also had the largest number of slaves, 490,865, while Mississippi had 436,631 slaves. Of course, the White population of Virginia was 1,047,909, while Mississippi's White population was only 363,898. Mississippi's Black population was almost 20% greater than the White population. Nationwide, there were 476,748 free Black people and 3,950,546 slaves.

One of the most interesting things was the difference in the number of slaves owned by individuals in Virginia and Mississippi

Number of Slaves,  Virginia    Mississippi

1                  11,085      4859
2                    5989      3201
3                    4474      2503
4                    3807      2129
5                    3233      1809
6                    2824      1585
7                    2393      1303
8                    1984      1149
9                    1788      1024
10/14                5686      3432
15/19                3088      2057
20/29                3017      2322
30/39                1291      1143
40/49                 609       755
50/69                 503       814
70/99                 243       545
100/199               105       279
200/299                 8        28
300/499                 1         8
500/999                 0         1
------------------------------------
Totals             52,128    30,946

In the entire Country, there was only one man, in South Carolina, who owned over a 1,000 slaves.

In Virginia, 5% of the White population owned slaves; while in Mississippi, 8.5% of the White population owned slaves. Of course, if you looked at family units; Hubby, wife and the kids, the percentage of slave owning families would be much higher. Probably in the range of 30% or 40% in Mississippi.

The spread of slavery and exploitation (development) of land in Mississippi has a direct relationship to Indian treaties.  The land was taken from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians (what an understatement) and made available to white settlers.  What goes unsaid is the Indians were removed to what was then called the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) or allowed to remain in restricted areas, today called reservations.

The Treaty of Mount Dexter, in 1805, ceded 4,500,000 acres of Choctaw land to the Federal Government in what was at that time the Mississippi Territory.  This was mostly what is called today the Piney Woods region, the bottom third of the state.  The Mississippi Territory included the present day states of Alabama and Mississippi.

Mississippi was granted statehood in 1817, but 2/3 of the state was Indian territory.  This land was taken from the Indians in a series of treaties.  As soon as the treaties were done, whites poured into the ceded areas and brought slaves by the hundreds and thousands.

The Treaty of Doak’s Stand, in 1820, ceded a little over 5,000,000 acres of Choctaw land.  This became some of the most productive agricultural land in the world.  A good portion of this land was in the Mississippi Delta.  It opened up a large part of the Delta for agricultural exploitation and chattel bondage.

The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, signed in 1830, opened right at 11,000,000 acres of Choctaw land to white settlement.  A large portion of this land included the Black Prairie region, to include all of the previously mentioned Noxubee County.  Planters and their accompanying slaves immediately moved into this area.

The Treaty of Pontotoc (Creek), signed in 1832, opened 6,200,000 acres of Chickasaw land to white settlement.  Pontotoc Creek opened north Mississippi.

After Pontotoc Creek, outside of a few isolated spots, there was no remaining Indian land in Mississippi.

The more I study this situation the more I am amazed as just how far slavery extended and how if affected the economy of the North.

Just last week at The Constitution Center in Philadelphia I heard a member of the DeWolfe Family who has researched her family's history due in part to hearing about they were slave traders in the 18th and 19th centuries. It turns out her family was the largest slave traders in the US and based out of Rhode Island. The ship building industry benefited along with all the related industries supporting ship builders and the workers. PBS will be airing the story in June. I will check for the name of the documentary and post it.

One more item speaking of the Indian Removals "Trail of Tears" by Gloria Johuda is an excellant book to read ISBN: 051746770.

This country has many injustices over its history past and present.

Finally getting back into history and research after a few years absence from serious reading etc.  

The following table is taken from a chapter entitled “Heartland of the Cotton Kingdom,” by Dr. William K. Scarborough, in a two volume set of books called A History of Mississippi, edited by Dr. Aubrey McLemore, published in 1973, page 325.  This information comes from Volume I.

Year-- Number of Whites-- Number of Slaves
1820-- 42,176-- 32,814
1830-- 70,443-- 65,659
1840-- 179,074-- 195,211
1850-- 295,718--   309,878
1860-- 353,901--   436,631

What goes unsaid is the heaviest density of slave populations was in those areas more conducive to large cotton plantations.

“The greatest density of slave population was registered in the Delta counties of Issaquena and Washington, where, in both 1850 and 1860, blacks outnumbered whites by more than nine to one.  In the former county the average number of slaves owned by each of the 115 slaveholders was 63, one of the highest figures recorded for any county in the slave States.”  Ibid, pg. 326.  

--Last edited by Curtis Makamson on 2008-05-01 09:24:06 --

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Curtis Makamson wrote : What goes unsaid is the heaviest density of slave populations was in those areas more conducive to large cotton plantations.

I have read in the past if not for Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin and the westard expansion into prime cotton growing areas, not as many slaves would have been needed since picking the cotton was labor intensive, but porcessing with the cotton gin was quick and world demand high.

The consusus of opinion is that by 1860, slavery was dying in the Old South. Based on the census figures for Virginia, it seems slavery still had a long way to go. People owned fewer slaves, but an awful lot of people still owned them.  

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Bill wrote : The consusus of opinion is that by 1860, slavery was dying in the Old South. Based on the census figures for Virginia, it seems slavery still had a long way to go. People owned fewer slaves, but an awful lot of people still owned them.

I posted this on the Citizens' of the CW listserve back in February.  I found it interesting:

In looking back at earlier editions of the Portsmouth paper in order to look at the ads, I ran across this from the Feb. 1, 1859 Portsmouth [Ohio] paper, p. 3

"A splendid sugar plantation containing 1,643 acres of land, and 95 negroes, near Bayou Goula, La., belonging to the estate of Samuel S. Harrison, was sold at public auction a few days since and brought the handsome sum of $240,500.  The purchaser was Cyprien Ricard, a free man of color, who owned the adjoining plantation, which is worth as much more."

Linda.

The Documentary that started my post is "Traces of The Trade", descendants of the largest slave-trading family in US retrace the Triangle Trade from Rhode Island to Ghana and Cuba. Worth watching IMHO it is part of PBS's P.O.V. documentary series which will begin June 24 at 10:00 PM.

Quote :

Linda Trent wrote :"A splendid sugar plantation containing 1,643 acres of land, and 95 negroes, near Bayou Goula, La., belonging to the estate of Samuel S. Harrison, was sold at public auction a few days since and brought the handsome sum of $240,500.  The purchaser was Cyprien Ricard, a free man of color, who owned the adjoining plantation, which is worth as much more."

One of those ignored facts that doesn't seem to come up in the general discussion on slavery, similar to the complicity of black Africans in gathering the potential laborors for transport to the west.

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flattop32355 wrote :   One of those ignored facts that doesn't seem to come up in the general discussion on slavery.

Bernie,

I think you'll find that Black slave owners were pretty much unique to Louisiana.

I'd also make a wild guess that these "Black" slave owners looked more like you and me, rather than the average Field Hand. In the antebellem South, it didn't take much black blood to have you listed as a Negro.

The Louisiana Native Guards, James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., Louisiana State University Press, 1998, pg 5.

“More than 80% of the free black population in New Orleans in 1860 had European blood in their veins.  In contrast, fewer than 10 percent of the slaves in Louisiana gave evidence of white ancestry.  Because skin color and free status were highly correlated, many free blacks identified more closely with Southern whites than with African blacks.”

The laws varied slightly from state to state; but basically the rule was that a child of a white man and a black women was legally black and if the mother was a slave, so was the child. After a few generations of white men making babies with "black" women, these kids were genetically more white than black; but were still legally black and most likely slaves.

There was no provision in the law, for children born to a black man and a white women. The fiction was that this never happened. In the real world, these women were sent away to have their baby and if the child "survived" it was raised in the slave quarters.