# Did more Northerners own slaves than Southerners before the Civil War?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 18, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203 "2006-05-18T01:31:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kevlaur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevlaur)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/1 "2006-05-18T01:31:44Z")
I recall reading, a while back, that more Northerners - per capita - owned slaves than Southerners before the Civil War.
Of course, there were more slaves in the South - Southerners tended to
own 100s, if not 1000s. Does it follow than, that most Southerners
didn’t own slaves?
I’m not trying to re-fight the War, start fights, justify slavery, claim the Civil War
had nothing to do with slavery, etc, etc. I was speaking today with my high school
son and the subject of slavery came up.
Any stats?
Thanks!
Kevlaur
---
### Author:  [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/2 "2006-05-18T01:39:40Z")
That sounds like one of those things where someone is trying to use some obscure statistic to promote an agenda. Be wary! If the isolated stat is true, so what? Does it really tell you anything at all?
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/3 "2006-05-18T01:48:18Z")
Since there were more Northerners than Southerners and there were more slaves in the South, it would have been physically impossible for more Northerners than Southerners to own slaves on a _per capita_ basis in 1860.\* Since slavery was also illegal in every Northern state, the only way for a person to own slaves in the North was to bring a personal servant from the South. (This happened, rather rarely, among some members of the Army.)
- I do not know whether there was some statistical anomaly in the 18th century where there were more slaves owned by Northerners for a brief period, (say sea captains before transferring their “property” to farmers), but I doubt it. Even when slavery was legal in the North, it was not economical (which is why Northern states began outlawing slavery much earlier than the general Abolition movement). However, even if more slaves were owned (temporarily) by Northerners, there were never more Northerners than Southerners who owned slaves. The “typical” slave owner was more likely to be a farmer who owned one or two field hands than a plantaion owner with dozens, so the number of slave-_owners_ in the South, while small, was still spread across the population, pretty well.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/4 "2006-05-18T02:22:35Z")
I just received my copy of [Inhuman Bondage : The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, by David Brion Davis](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195140737/sr=8-1/qid=1147917678/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4748366-7635906?%5Fencoding=UTF8), which is supposed to be the definitive comprehensive popular look at the subject.
I haven’t even opened it up till now, so any numbers I cite come from jsut flipping through it. However, he says that in 1770, Connecticut had 5,698 blacks, most of them slaves, compared to 25 in Vermont, 4754 in Massachusettes, 10,640 in New Jersey, and 19,062 in New York.
He also says:
> [@](#):
>
> It is highly misleading to llok only at the small percentage of slaves in eighteenth-century colony-wide populations - for example, 8 percent in New Jersey or under 4 percent in Connecticut. In the mid-eighteenth century black slaves performed at least one-third of all physical labor in New York City. By 1750 slaves made up 34 percent of the population of Longs County (Bropoklyn) and 18 percent of New York County.
Slavery was the source of much manual labor in the north, and not just in the cities. They were used heavily on farms as well.
But even having said that, there is not the slightest possibilty that slaves were generally or specifically more represented per capita in any northern state at any time the U.S. existed as a nation.
Here are the real numbers, from the first census in 1790:
[http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:rsqV8ntzZekJ:www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS121/Census1790.html+slave+population+1790&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3](http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:rsqV8ntzZekJ:www.vw.cc.va.us/vwhansd/HIS121/Census1790.html+slave+population+1790&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3)
```auto
State Total-Pop. Slaves %-Slave
Connecticut 237,655 2,648 1.1
Delaware 59,096 8,887 15.0
Georgia 82,548 29,264 34.5
Kentucky 73,677 12,430 16.9
Maryland 319,728 103,036 32.2
Massachusetts 378,556 0 0.0
New-Hampshire 141,899 157 0.1
New Jersey 184,139 11,423 6.2
New York 340,241 21,193 6.2
North Carolina 395,005 100,783 25.5
Pennsylvania 433,611 3,707 0.9
Rhode Island 69,112 958 1.4
South Carolina 249,073 107,094 43.0
Vermont 85,341 0 0.0
Virginia 747,550 292,627 39.1
```
It’s not even close. And it would of course just get more disproportionate with every passing year. There were an estinmated 4 million slaves in the south just before the civil war and essentially none in the north. Whatever the OP read was completely wrong
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/5 "2006-05-18T02:44:51Z")
Actually, there is one way it could happen, but I doubt it did: absentee slaveowners. That is, the slaves lived in the south, but their owners lived in the north. But for this to have happened, you’d have to have most of the plantations be owned by, say, a limited liability corporation based in the north, and then counting each of the shareholders as a slaveowner. Or something similar.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/6 "2006-05-18T02:51:01Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Since there were more Northerners than Southerners and there were more slaves in the South, it would have been physically impossible for more Northerners than Southerners to own slaves on a _per capita_ basis in 1860.\* Since slavery was also illegal in every Northern state, the only way for a person to own slaves in the North was to bring a personal servant from the South. (This happened, rather rarely, among some members of the Army.)
**tomndebb** , I am finding it extremely hard to find out where you are coming from here. You have to define Northern state. I define it as any state in the Union during the Civil War. I consider Maryland one [and yet it had slaves even during the Civil War.](http://www.etymonline.com/cw/maryland.htm) Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation freed the northern slaves after 1863…
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/7 "2006-05-18T03:58:55Z")
Maryland was in the union for no other reason than Lincoln sending the Army to occupy it before it could secede. He did it for the sensible reason that with both Maryland and Virginia part of the Confederacy, Washington D.C. would be cut off from the rest of the country by land and indefensible. Not calling Maryland a “northern state” is the only proper way to approach it.
Same for all the border states. Everybody in the country at the time understood the distinction between northern states, i.e. those without slavery, and southern states, i.e. those with slavery. Some of the southern states were prevented from seceding in various ways and by various means, but nobody confused them then.
Nor were they freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which only applied to areas under rebellion, which none of these states could possibily be said to be in.
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/8 "2006-05-18T05:19:06Z")
I think the OP is trying to say that a greater proportion of the Northern population were slave owners than of the Southern population. IOW large numbers of Northerners had one or a small number of slaves as personal servants, whereas the relavitely few of the Southerners who were plantation owners owned most of the slaves in the South.
Quite why this matters I have no idea.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/9 "2006-05-18T05:27:01Z")
In the first U.S. census of 1790, there were 697,624 slaves. The New England states had 3,763 slaves, or 0.5% of the national total. If we divide the states up between the future Union and Confederacy, the Union states in 1790 had 61,403 (23.6%) of the slaves, and the Confederate states had 529,768 (75.9%) of the slaves.
By 1804, all states north of the Mason-Dixon line had laws either forbidding slavery or providing for its gradual elimination.
In the U.S. census of 1820, there were 1,529,012 slaves. New England states had 145 (\<0.1%) of the slaves. The future Union states had 267,939 (17.5%) of the slaves. The future Confederate states had 1,261,073 (82.5%) of the slaves.
[Historical Census Browser](http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/)
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/10 "2006-05-18T05:29:18Z")
Less than one third of Southern families owned slaves in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. In the Lower South, 37.6% of white families owned slaves. In the Middle South, the percentage was 25.3%, and the combined total for the Confederacy was 30.8%. In the Border States (those slave states that stayed in the Union), the percentage was 15.9%.
For more information:
[Selected Statistics on Slavery in the United States](http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/stat.html)
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/11 "2006-05-18T05:41:10Z")
Updated link:
[Selected Statistics on Slavery in the United States](http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/stat.html)
> [@Askance](#):
>
> IOW large numbers of Northerners had one or a small number of slaves as personal servants, whereas the relavitely few of the Southerners who were plantation owners owned most of the slaves in the South.
88% of slave owners in the South held fewer than twenty slaves, and nearly 50% held fewer than five.
---
### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/12 "2006-05-18T14:32:26Z")
> [@Kevlaur](#):
>
> I recall reading, a while back, that more Northerners - per capita - owned slaves than Southerners before the Civil War.
No, you don’t recall reading this, because it’s complete nonsense. After the Northern states abolished slavery, between the Revolution and 1820, the only way a Northerner could own slaves was as an absentee owner of Southern property. This happened, but it was so rare that, to my knowledge, nobody ever even bothered to compile statistics on it. It should be **painfully obvious** that a greater percentage of Southerners than Northerners owned slaves.
As for the period before Northern abolition, note that in 1790, the proportion of slaves in the population was about ten times as high in the South as the North. For a larger percentage of white Northerners to have been slave owners, the average Southern master would have had to own at least ten times as many slaves as the average Northern master. I can’t find statistics from 1790 to **prove** that this wasn’t the case, but common sense argues against it.
> [@Kevlaur](#):
>
> Of course, there were more slaves in the South - Southerners tended to
> own 100s, if not 1000s. Does it follow than, that most Southerners
> didn’t own slaves?
Correct, a majority of white Southerners did not own slaves. See **walloon** ’s site.
---
### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/13 "2006-05-18T15:19:43Z")
For the number of slave owning households in each state from 1790 to 1860, see:
_The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States : An Historical View, 1790-1978_. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, 1979. (Current Population Reports special studies P-23, no. 80.)
---
### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/14 "2006-05-18T19:50:55Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> Maryland was in the union for no other reason than Lincoln sending the Army to occupy it before it could secede. He did it for the sensible reason that with both Maryland and Virginia part of the Confederacy, Washington D.C. would be cut off from the rest of the country by land and indefensible. Not calling Maryland a “northern state” is the only proper way to approach it.
>
> Same for all the border states. Everybody in the country at the time understood the distinction between northern states, i.e. those without slavery, and southern states, i.e. those with slavery. Some of the southern states were prevented from seceding in various ways and by various means, but nobody confused them then.
>
> Nor were they freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which only applied to areas under rebellion, which none of these states could possibily be said to be in.
To Maryland’s credit she freed the Slaves herself in November 1864 (if the state was truly legitimately split and there was some small chicanery with voting soldiers to pass it 50.1-49.9% well … so what says this Native Marylander)
As to the other borders where the EP didn’t carry
Missouri
Did free the slaves on their own in 1865 – 45 years after the famous 1820 Missouri Comprimise let them enter the Union
The other Border states REFUSED TO RATIFY THE 13TH Amendment and slavery was abolished only when it became the law of the land
Delaware
Outlawed Importation in 1776.
Banned inter-state traffic 1797 (so owners couldn’t seel thier salves away out of state - it IS a big deal)
BUT only in December 1865, when the 13th Amendment went into effect on a national scale, did slavery cease in Delaware (there were only a few hundred left at that point)
Kentucky
Ban on slaves into the state for sale in 1833
1864 Kentucky Slaves can enlist in the U.S. Army without Owner’s permission and with compensation to “loyal” owners
BUT only in December 1865, when the 13th Amendment went into effect on a national scale, did slavery cease in the Blue Grass State (Slaves had been about 20% of the pop. In 1860)
* * *
As to the OP [here](http://www.slavenorth.com/newjersey.htm) are some hard numbers on the “North”
In 1830, of the 3,568 Northern blacks who remained slaves, more than two-thirds were in New Jersey. The institution was rapidly declining in the 1830s, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished [_ed. In NJ_].
---
### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/15 "2006-05-18T20:02:03Z")
> [@jimmmy](#):
>
> In 1830, of the 3,568 Northern blacks who remained slaves, more than two-thirds were in New Jersey. The institution was rapidly declining in the 1830s, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished [_ed. In NJ_].
And, as your link shows, replaced with “permanent apprenticeship”, which was really the same thing.
---
### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/16 "2006-05-18T20:08:14Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#):
>
> No, you don’t recall reading this, because it’s complete nonsense.
To be fair to the OP, s/he could have read it, and came asking here because it didn’t seem right. “Being in print” does not equal “being true.” **Walloon** has provided some excellent less confrontational answers.
Welcome to the SDMB **Kevlaur**!
---
### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/17 "2006-05-18T20:08:46Z")
> [@jimmmy](#):
>
> so owners couldn’t seel thier salves
😕
---
### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/18 "2006-05-18T20:20:49Z")
> [@Walloon](#):
>
> 😕
\*Sell their slaves out of state \* - says **DYSLEXIC MAN**!!! I am really amazing that way and I know I can be hard to follow because of it - sorry. The idea is that most states moving toward gradual emancipation allowed the slave holders to sell their slaves south – Delaware didn’t do that and that was a “true” move to end slavery - it reflects well on them.
**Captain** - I am always amazed at some of the stuff the “free” blacks faced - even in the North – no buying liquor unless a white man of good character gave them a pass? Is that really “free”?
---
### Author:  [@Kevlaur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevlaur)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/19 "2006-05-20T14:59:08Z")
Wow, great info.
I guess I meant to ask:
Did more Northerners than Southerners own slaves?
My ‘per capita’ was in error.
> [@](#):
>
> For the number of slave owning households in each state from 1790 to 1860, see:
>
> The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States : An Historical View, 1790-1978. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census, 1979. (Current Population Reports special studies P-23, no. 80.)
Aw… you didn’t list any numbers.
> [@](#):
>
> No, you don’t recall reading this, because it’s complete nonsense.
Thanks for clearing up what I may, or may not, have read. Can I call
you before I turn in my paper at school?
I don’t believe its quite true that all Northern states abolish slavery,
Gen. Grant’s wife brought her slaves with her to visit him during the war!
(As I recalled this, I had to go look it up - ‘What they didn’t teach
you about the Civil War’ - Mike Wright.
As was stated the EP freed the slaves in the ‘rebellious states.’
> [@](#):
>
> As to the OP here are some hard numbers on the “North”
Doesn’t quite answer my question. But, I found the following
site:
[http://www.civil-war.net/census.asp?census=Total](http://www.civil-war.net/census.asp?census=Total)
Data on all states. Clearly, there were more slaveholders
in the South vs the North in 1860. I wonder about 1850 and earlier.
The tipping point must have been in the 1700’s.
Another neat site: [http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/](http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/)
Interesting discussion! Thanks for all the posts!
Lots of data, I hope High School and young college
students frequent these boards.
Now… to go see the other posts.
Kevlaur
---
### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-more-northerners-own-slaves-than-southerners-before-the-civil-war/357203/20 "2006-05-20T15:19:45Z")
I agree completely with **Spartydog**. Somehow, it is possible to find some obscure statistic that once explained shows nothing, but seems to advance somebody’s agenda and this is trumpeted as though it meant something.
I just read a review of Davis’s book in which the reviewer, a historian, asserted that slavery was not abolished in the US until 1863 by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. **Wrong!** The EP didn’t free a single slave. It purported to emancipate slavery only in those areas not under US control where it could not possibly be enforced and didn’t do a thing in the areas under US control. I have always assumed that its purpose was to demoralize the south while not giving any excuse to border states to secede. Slavery was finally abolished whenever the 13th amendment was ratified. The northern states accepted it voluntarily, the southern states since it was the only way to end the military occupation. It would be interesting to find out if any border states ratified it.
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