# at what age did the last known American slave die? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 20, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272 "2005-07-20T10:56:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/21 "2016-05-15T19:11:10Z")
> [@Davidargall](#): > > Charles Smith was found in old census records, and on a marriage license, all of which dated his birth to about 1874, well after the end of slavery. This sort of exaggeration is not at all unusual. One study found that in a limited literate society, people over 60 “age” at the average rate of 14 years a decade. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were reports of Russian peasants, almost all of them men, who were 150 years old or more. It was later revealed that they took the identity of an older relative to avoid having to serve in WW I or other conflicts. That’s a very interesting story about an African embassy family being able to legally own slaves on American soil. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![midshipmanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@midshipmanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/midshipmanx)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/22 "2017-08-23T20:54:17Z")
According to Wikipedia, the last known living U.S. Slave was Sylvester Magee. He died in 1971 reportedly at the approximate age of 130 years old (born 1841, died 1971). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester\_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee) ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/23 "2017-08-23T23:02:35Z")
As a side note in the 1930s the Works Progress Administration had a project to collect the reminiscences of some 2,000 former slaves. There is controversy about just how accurate they were or how much many of the interviewers being white affected them. But many are available online. > **[Slave Narrative Collection](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Narrative_Collection)** > > Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States (often referred to as the WPA Slave Narrative Collection) is a collection of histories by formerly enslaved people undertaken by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1938. It was the simultaneous effort of state-level branches of FWP in seventeen states, working largely separately from each other. FWP administrators sought to develop a new appreciation for the elements of American life from ... ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/24 "2017-08-24T22:03:08Z")
> [@midshipmanx](#): > > According to Wikipedia, the last known living U.S. Slave was Sylvester Magee. He died in 1971 reportedly at the approximate age of 130 years old (born 1841, died 1971). > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester\_Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee) Wikipedia also says the longest-lived man was “only” 116 years old: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_the\_verified\_oldest\_men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_men) It sounds like Sylvester Mcgee definitely convinced a lot of people in the '60s and '70s that he was indeed a Civil War veteran, so. I guess anything’s possible. I’m not sure how rigorous Jet’s reporting of it was, though. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/25 "2017-08-24T22:22:26Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > In the 1960s and 1970s, there were reports of Russian peasants, almost all of them men, who were 150 years old or more. It was later revealed that they took the identity of an older relative to avoid having to serve in WW I or other conflicts. That makes me think of the revelation a few years back that many of Japan’s supposed centenarians [weren’t](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/10/japenese-centenarians-records). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/26 "2017-08-25T16:38:56Z")
My aged MIL tells the story of her father, born in Italy in ~1880. In those days conscription into the Italian Army was near universal, but birth & death recordkeeping was pretty haphazard. So in 1890-something the young man’s mother prevailed on him, her second son, to lie about his age and take his older brother’s place in the army’s call-up. The older brother was more special, was going to be the family priest, whatever. But he had to be saved so therefore the second brother had to take his place in the war. Gee thanks Mom. Successfully finishing his brother’s enlistment, including combat in Ethiopia, he was then himself the age to be drafted. Shortly after his discharge he switched back to his own name and reported for a second hitch, this time as himself. Following that enlistment he’d had quite enough of both Italy’s army & Mom. So he emigrated to the US around 1900. By the time of WWI he was an established naturalized American citizen, too old for service, and very much anti-military and anti-war. Is any of this actually true? Damned if I know, but MIL insists she was told the story many times from an early age by the people directly involved. The overall punch line being that before the days of centralized reliable recordkeeping, people had a much more fluid idea of who and what they were. Lots of people lived more than one administrative life, whether serially or in parallel. Everybody expected this kind of shenanigans and nobody was surprised by it. Whereas today it borders on impossibly difficult and is therefore almost unthinkable. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2017, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/27 "2017-08-26T09:56:23Z")
How old is Mike Pence? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272/28 "2017-08-27T20:18:30Z")
> [@nachtmusick](#): > > How old is Mike Pence? [Moderator Note] I suppose that this is intended as some kind of political jab, although it doesn’t make a lot of sense. In any case, it doesn’t belong in GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-did-the-last-known-american-slave-die/313272.md?page=1)