John C. Carter
1860 Census
Thu May 31 17:10:31 2001


Alan...

Very good point. At first, I wondered what you were thinking but as I did the math it was obvious. If you go to the other extreme and only count the number of families in Alabama (96,603) and use the number of slaveholders in the census (33,730) you get 35%, which is too high.That's not a realistic exercise though, as the number of families can't be defined by race, or size. 5% always semed a little too low- but then I never really looked that closely at the 1860 Census data before. It would be better if we could match up the age groups of free white males with the number of slaveholders and the amount of acreage they owned. There are also many things the data doesn't tell us: how many of the slaves were owned by free blacks; how many multiple families lived under one roof; how many single or widowed women owned slaves, etc...

It's not so much the total percentage that is important as the questions someone wants to ask. I don't think it is a surprise to anyone that Alabamians owned a lot of slaves, whether 5% did or 20%. What I would like to know is what are the differences between the slaveholders by their age, the acreage they owned, the number of slaves they had, and their position in life (if that could ever be determined by the data). How did that affect their views on secession? How many people owned a slave or two simply because it was the fashionable thing to do...the 1860's version of wannabees. What I found interesting is that the largest single category of slave ownership was in the last category: one slave...5,607 slaveowners owned just one slave. Why would so many people have just one slave? They have to be very different from the people who owned even 5 slaves.

In the 1860 census, 27,699 slaveholders (out of 33,730) owned less than 20 slaves- that leaves 18% of the slaveowners owning 20 or more slaves. Another thought occured to me: how many of these slaves were not on plantations or farms, but were in urban areas like Mobile? The Census data is a fabulous source of information, even if it has some flaws in it. Data, however, can always be manipulated to prove a point or even just ignored if we don't agree with it. Since the data is online and is easy to query, everyone really should go in and work with the numbers for their own satisfaction. It is a better source for raising some questions than in proving some points.

John