XLance
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Posts: 14,355
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I Root For: Carolina
Location: Greensboro, NC
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RE: Research Triangle to the SEC
(03-21-2020 09:27 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (03-20-2020 12:29 PM)XLance Wrote: (03-20-2020 08:51 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (03-20-2020 08:14 AM)XLance Wrote: (03-19-2020 09:14 PM)quo vadis Wrote: From Wiki, numbers from US Census data:
"By 1860, the number of slaves in the state of North Carolina was 331,059, about one third of the total population of the state. In 1860, there were nineteen counties in North Carolina where the number of slaves was larger than the free white population."
That's a fair number of slaves. And it also was a peak, i.e., in 1840, the slave population of NC was 245,000.
From the census map, it looks like slave populations in North Carolina and Virginia were heavily concentrated in the "Tidewater" area, the areas closest to the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay. The western part of NC and the southwestern part of Virginia, the mountainous parts that border on Kentucky and Tennessee, much less so:
https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1860_...bution.pdf
The slave population in North Carolina in 1830 was 245,000 (same number as 1840) according to the US census and didn't grow during the ten years between 1830 and 1840 because a number of those persons were relocated to vacated Indian lands.
There were approx 20,000 free colored persons living in North Carolina in 1830, 23,000 in 1840 and 35,000 in 1860. Those numbers were even higher in Virginia.
The US census in 1850 stopped separating slave and free black populations, and only reported the number (NC) as Blacks (316,000 in 1850 and 361,000 in 1860).
The Census (see link below) says that there were about 31,000 free colored persons in NC in 1860. Subtract that from 361,000 total and you have way more slaves than in 1840:
".... the 1860 census showed only 144 free Negroes in Arkansas, 773 in Mississippi, and 932 in Florida, while in Maryland there were 83,942; in Virginia, 58,042; in North Carolina, 30,463; and in Louisiana, 18,647."
The map I posted itself - which refers to slaves and is a US government document - makes it clear that slavery was extremely rife in NC on the dawn of the civil war. As rife as in Mississippi? No. But there's just no two ways about it.
And ironically, just as in Virginia, the whites who tended to oppose slavery and wanted to remain in the union tended to be those in the western mountainous regions of the state, whereas the Tidewater areas with the big plantations were staunchly in favor of the Confederacy. Of course, it is those mountainous areas that the ACC schools have traditionally looked down on as "backwards", "hayseeds", etc. like the attitude towards West Virginia, which seceded from Virginia because it did not want to secede from the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Negro
There weren't very many "big plantations" in North Carolina.
In 1786 North Carolina again banned slave importation; it increased the prohibitive duty on imported Africans, which was later repealed in 1790. Prohibitive laws became more specific in 1794, barring the importation not only of slaves but also of indentured servants by "land or water routes." One year later, legislators passed the "Act against West Indian Slaves," which expressly prevented the importation of slaves by individuals emigrating from the West Indies. White slaveholders in North Carolina made up 31 percent of the population in 1790 and 27.7 percent in 1860. Only 2 percent of these slaveholders owned more than 50 slaves, and only 3 percent attained the rank of planter (owning 20 or more slaves). In 1860 the vast majority of slaveholders (70.8 percent) owned fewer than 10 slaves.
https://www.ncpedia.org/slavery
BTW the United States banned the importation of slaves in 1807.
That's interesting. FWIW, I never claimed there were tons of big plantations in NC. By definition, big plantations are relatively rare anywhere, just like billionaires are.
But none of that changes the basic facts about slavery in NC that I described in the previous posts. Of course, nobody's hands are clean on that, as slavery existed in the north as well for almost as long as it did in the south. E.g., there were slaves in New York for over 200 years, the last ones weren't freed until 1827.
Legalized slavery ended in the United States on December 6, 1865.
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