In the Old South, the Percentage of White Families That Owned Slaves Was Approximately

The claim: Only one.half-dozen% of U.South. citizens owned slaves in 1860

Every bit more Confederate monuments were existence removed in the South this calendar month, an old claim seeking to downplay the extent of slave ownership began to recirculate online.

On July 11, a Facebook user shared a screenshot of a 2019 tweet that claims but 1.6% of U.Southward. citizens endemic slaves in 1860. The post came a twenty-four hours after a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed in Charlottesville, Virginia, the site of a violent white supremacist rally in 2017.

"So you can stop basing your hate for an unabridged race for the actions of a mere i.6%," the 2019 Twitter post says. "Am I right?"

Non exactly. PolitiFact and Snopes have previously evaluated similar claims that popped up in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

More than:How an adventitious come across brought slavery to the U.s.

Data archived from the 1860 demography shows the ane.6% is slightly off. Simply historians say the bigger effect is that measuring slaveholders every bit a percent of the total population is misleading because slavery was illegal in virtually states past that point. Where it was still legal, slavery was far more widespread than the number in the mail indicates, they said.

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"Y'all can apply statistics to demonstrate a lot of things that aren't relevant or true," said Calvin Schermerhorn, a history professor at Arizona State University. "When yous search for context the context very chop-chop arrives in terms of what was actually going on."

The user who posted the original tweet and the Facebook user who shared it on July 11 did not respond to requests for comment.

Number minimizes extent of slavery

In 1860, slavery was notwithstanding legal in 15 of the 33 U.Southward. states, and slaves represented almost a third of the population in those slaveholding states.

At the time, the total U.S. population was nearly 31.4 meg, including more 3.9 million slaves. That left about 27.5 million free people in the U.S., co-ordinate to 1860 data from the U.S. Demography Bureau.

The U.S. had 395,216 slaveholders at that time, then about 1.4% of free people were classified equally slave owners in the 1860 census, according to data archived by the Integrated Public Apply Microdata Series at the University of Minnesota. That's slightly different from the 1.six% in the July eleven Facebook post.

Historians, though, say that statistic is hugely misleading since it both wrongly factors in the entirety of the non-slave-owning states and ignores that families endemic and had ability over slaves, not just one individual developed.

Using total population as a reference point also includes babies and children, for example, said Stephanie McCurry, history professor at Columbia University. Doing and so is "clearly designed to make that form of property seem marginal. It wasn't," she said.

Evaluating the share of households that endemic slaves in seceding states is "a much more constructive means," said Joseph Glatthaar, history professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In 1860, nearly twenty% of households in seceding states endemic slaves, he said.

"To break it downward about how many U.S. citizens endemic slaves is absurd," Glatthaar said in an e-mail.

If y'all only focus on who technically owned slaves, though, a meliorate metric would be to evaluate the proportion of slave owners in the 15 states where slavery was still legal in 1860, Arizona State's Schermerhorn said.

More:Court clears style for removal of Confederate statue at the center of deadly Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally

About 5% of people in those states were considered slaveholders, the data shows. That'southward nearly iii times college than the number shared in the mail service.

Merely Schermerhorn said even that minimizes the number of white people who benefitted from slavery. For example, the patriarch of a family might take been counted equally the slave owner in the census, but other members of the household had potency to commit "violence with dispensation" on enslaved people, he said.

Slaves also were rented out. So while a slave owner was but counted once, other people and businesses, including railroad companies, could do good from slavery equally well, Schermerhorn said.

Our rating: Missing context

The claim that just 1.vi% of U.S. citizens endemic slaves in 1860 is MISSING CONTEXT, based on our research. The stat itself is slightly off: Census Bureau data from that period shows about 1.4% of free people owned slaves in 1860. Historians, though, say that grossly underrepresents the extent of slavery in the U.S. earlier the Civil War because it includes babies, children and people in states where slavery was illegal in the calculation. Slavery was illegal in all only fifteen states by 1860. A more authentic mode to portray the extent of slavery would be to annotation 20% of households in seceding states owned slaves, fifty-fifty though the private owner was counted equally only one person in that household.

Our fact-cheque sources:

• USA TODAY, July nine, Charlottesville removes Confederate statues, including i that sparked deadly far-right rally
• Snopes, Aug. 7, 2019, Did But 1.4 Pct of White Americans Ain Slaves in 1860?
• Politifact, Aug. 24, 2017, Viral post gets information technology incorrect well-nigh extent of slavery in 1860
• Library of Congress, accessed July 15, Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United states. Compiled from the demography of 1860 Copy 1
• U.S. Census Bureau, accessed July 15, 1860 Decennial Population
• IPUMS NHGIS, University of Minnesota, accessed July xv, Virtually
• Stephanie McCurry, Columbia University, July 13, electronic mail interview
• Calvin Schermerhorn, Arizona State University, July 13, phone interview
• Joseph Glatthaar, University of Northward Carolina-Chapel Hill, July 13, email interview
• U.South. Census Bureau, accessed July xv, 1850 Statistics of Slaves
• U.Due south. Census Agency, accessed July 15, Decennial Demography Official Publications - 1860

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/16/fact-check-social-media-post-underrepresents-slave-ownership-1860/7980243002/

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