With but few exceptions Olmsted portrays the planters as possessing nominal wealth in land and slaves but lacking in their homes even the comforts of an ordinary working man in the North. Perhaps the most extremely denigrating view of Southern society was that painted by the British economist J.E. Adjusted for population, this would be equivalent to six million U.S. fighters dying in battle over a four-year period. Value of Estate Owned: Value of Real Estate. There were just over 3.2 million slaves in the U.S. in 1850, about 14% of the total population. To discount slave wealth gives an exceedingly false economic picture, as it constituted a prime element of Southern wealth and was easily convertible to cash or other forms of wealth if desired. Of the 433 Southern counties with a free per capita wealth in excess of $1,000, 391 were in these states, forming 48.5 percent of the counties of the future Confederate States, without West Virginia. statistic alerts) please log in with your personal account. He was replying to Stanley Engermans argument that the antebellum Souths economy was prosperous and compared quite favorably with the economy of the Northern United States. Statista. Studies of the past few decades, however, have seriously questioned the old assumption of a markedly inferior Southern economy in the pre-war years. According to the 1860 census, the US population was 31,443,321 - an increase of 39 percent in one decade. Colin Woodard argued in his 2011 book American Nations that the South was relatively less successful in attracting immigrants due to the South's reputation as a more stratified society. No data for slavery in 1860 is provided in the 1860 Census, which was published in 1864. SmartAssets free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Society was stratified, inegalitarian, and perceived by immigrants as lacking in opportunities. The free citizens of all other Southern and border states enjoyed more wealth per person. > Population in 1860: 1,110,000 ranked 10 out of 34 Coupled with the political power of the South and the arguments of the Republican Party, there was ample incentive for Northerners to want to clip the wings of the slaveholders, to reduce their power and even their affluence. [3] Richard A. Easterlin, Interregional Differences in Per Capita Income, Population, and Total Income, 1840-1950, in Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. > Population in 1860: 1,712,000 ranked 4 out of 34 J. C. Bonner correctly described Olmsted as a condescending visitor [who} saw only what he came to see andrecorded his observations in terms of preconceived ideas, prejudice, and subjectivity. 24: Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, by the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 105-106. Nov 25, 2016. [33] Edwin J. Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 150-154. Carines during the Civil War in his book The Slave Power. > Population in 1870: 1,184,000 ranked 13 out of 34, Minnesota > Population in 1860: 140,000 ranked 31 out of 34 Printable Version Pre-Civil War Americans regarded Southerners as a distinct people, who possessed their own values and ways of life. Show publisher information Almost as striking a contrast existed between the eleven Confederate States and those of the Border as between the former and the North. Americans of Jewish ethnicity or faith have inhabited the Southern United States since the late 1600s and have contributed to the vibrant cultural and historical legacy of the South in many ways. ", "1860 Census: Population of the United States", Population of the United States in 1860; compiled from the original returns of the eighth census under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior by Joseph C.G. '; the results are probably unique to Richmond's population, which grew rapidly during the war. For other uses, see. Before The Civil War: Nullification Crisis. > Population in 1860: 2,906,000 ranked 2 out of 34 Currently, you are using a shared account. font-family: SQMarket-Medium; From the graph we can see. > Population in 1860: 460,000 ranked 24 out of 34 ", Many claim that being a part of the British mercantilist system was in the best economic interest of the American colonies as well, as they would not have been able to survive as independent economic entities. Only 31 counties of the states of the 1860 nation are omitted from the table, apportioned among the states as follows: Florida, 2; Georgia, 1; Iowa, 2; Louisiana, 1; Michigan, 1; Mississippi, 3; Missouri, 1; and Texas, 20. The plantation system can be seen as the factory system applied to agriculture, with a concentration of labor under skilled management. Bill Cawthon (1946-2016) was an independent historian in Eufaula, Alabama. Wealth inequality grew as the larger landholders took the greater share of the profits generated by slaves, which also helped to entrench their power as a political class. Eric Foner: Southern whites were very divided in 1867. 1.8 percent versus 1.3 percent if only the free population is considered. [19] The average free person in the future Confederate States, minus the counties which became West Virginia, was worth $1,255.45; in the seven states of the Lower South, $1,508.61. > Population in 1870: 188,000 ranked 31 out of 34, Georgia In examining class relations and the banking system in the South, the economic exploitation of slave labor can be seen to arise from a need to maintain certain conditions for the existence of slavery and from a need for each of the remaining social strata to remain in status quo. Counties which today are among the poorest in the nation were then among the most affluent. Per capita wealth in Southern States ranged from over $2,000 in Mississippi and South Carolina to under $600 in only one. The Norths economy was-much closer to the industrial, modern system that is equated with wealth and progress than was the Souths backward looking agrarian economy and paternalistic social system. Essentially, men who would have been otherwise capable of performing other skilled jobs were nonetheless relegated to field work because of the nature of the system. Frank L. Owsley was the first to establish that a large middle class existed in the antebellum South. By 1870, state populations ranged from 4.4 million in New York to just 42,000 in Nevada (up considerably, though, from the mere 7,000 residents it had in 1860, before it became a state). true: -Slave populations were concentrated in areas with access to national markets. In twelve states of the South 158 counties exceeded $2,000, with a majority of Louisianas and South Carolinas counties in this elite group. Haywood, C. Robert. Analogous to today where wealth can fluctuate with value changes in stocks, factories, and other forms of property, the South suffered a huge loss of total wealth and assets when the American Civil War ended and slaves were no longer counted as physical property. As a result, Census Superintendent Joseph C. G. Kennedy and his staff produced only an abbreviated set of public reports, without graphic or cartographic representations. Number of United States military fatalities in major wars 1775-2023, Number of casualties in major battles in the American Civil War 1861-1865, Population of the United States in 1860, by race and gender, Number of casualties at the Siege of Vicksburg 1863, Facebook: quarterly number of MAU (monthly active users) worldwide 2008-2023, Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2023, Number of apps available in leading app stores Q3 2022, Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. May 15, 2014. Other surveys, including one published in October by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, showed similar results. We've got to mobilize ourselves. [29] Olmstead was educated at Yale and owned a farm on Staten Island. The Antebellum South was characterized by the use of slavery and the culture it fostered. All one has to do is to divide those figures by the population of the given district and one has a detailed geographical measurement of the wealth of the nation per head. Soltow based his study upon a sampling of free adult males found in the manuscript schedules of the censuses of population of 1850, 1860, and 1870. > Population in 1860: 2,340,000 ranked 3 out of 34 > Population in 1860: 52,000 ranked 34 out of 34 In 1860, the U.S. population was 31,443,321 (which included 3,953,760 slaves). Persons over 20 years of age who can not read and write. The populations of three other states New Hampshire, Maine, and South Carolina were also virtually unchanged. Though slaves held small amounts of personal property, it was not reported on the census schedules. " " + These statistics reveal a surprising similarity of wealth distribution among the free men of North and South. In the 15 years between the invention of the cotton gin and the passage of the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, an increase in the slave trade occurred, furthering the slave system in the United States.[6]. The chart below shows the numbers of Americans in each census year from 1800 to 1860, along with the total population of enslaved African-Americans in the United States (and in the Confederacy). Soltows spin samples revealed the average free adult male in the South to hold virtually twice the wealth of his Northern counterpart. Percentages ranged from 86.7 percent of South Carolinas counties to a quarter of Tennessees. These figures themselves, if true, would seem to topple the old notion of a stagnant, impoverished antebellum Southern economy. Soltow used this data as a backup for his study but somewhat misrepresented the values in so doing by dividing total wealth by the number of free men 20 and older, even though the wealth figures include that held by women and males under 20. [12], "Antebellum era" redirects here. Maine should be added as an exceedingly poor state. As the country expanded westward, slavery's propagation became a major issue in national politics, eventually boiling over into the Civil War. > Population in 1860: 708,000 ranked 17 out of 34 The years between 1800 and 1860 marked a period of rapid population growth throughoust the United States. These false images of the pre-war South had their origin in a number of sourcesabolitionist and wartime propaganda and misconceptions; descriptions by Northern and foreign travelers, most of whom were biased against the South to start with because of a dislike of slavery; Southern self-criticism by such writers as DeBow calling for economic and cultural independence from the North; a propensity for Southerners to deride poor elements in society by such epithets as white trash and to popularize tales of the poorer, more ignorant people, especially in the days when the land was a frontier; and to the defeat of the South in a cataclysmic war and the resultant poverty which beset the region. Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware would be wealthier than New York, and North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri would be richer than New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Among their major conclusions are that slavery as an economic system was never stronger than on the eve of the Civil War; that Southern slave agriculture [was] 35 percent more efficient than the northern system of family farming; and that the economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. The current study uses total free population as the primary base for comparison. }); Likewise, in order to remain within the same class, members of the master class (and each subsumed class below) must expand their claim on revenues derived from the slave labor surplus. [22] Middle Atlantic=New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; East North Central=Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin; West North Central=Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas; South Atlantic=Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; East South Central=Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi; West South Central=Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas; Pacific=California and Oregon. [11], While the South still attracted immigrants from Europe, the North attracted far more during the early-to-mid 1800s, such that by the time of the American Civil War, the population of the North far exceeded the non-enslaved population of the South per the 1860 United States census. The highest percentage of counties in this category found among the states adhering to the Union was Marylands 28.6 percent; the highest for a non-slave stateCalifornias 13.6 percent; and the highest for a Northern stateNew Jerseys 4.8 percent. The result has been a grossly distorted view of antebellum wealth and the distribution of that wealth in the Northern and Southern sections of the United States. > Population in 1860: 435,000 ranked 25 out of 34 Why is the North depicted as the possessor of great material wealth and prosperity and the master of a giant industrial economy waiting to be unleased, and the South as at best a quaint land of an outmoded order and at worst a region where the vast majority were oppressed into a cruel poverty? Writers such as Phillips and Gray portrayed the slave regime of the Old South in a more sympathetic light but still saw the Southern economy as distinctively less vibrant than the Northern. > Population in 1860: 1,220,000 ranked 7 out of 34 Finding a qualified financial advisor doesnt have to be hard. ALSO READ: Can You Answer These Real Jeopardy! The statistics did allow the census staff to produce a cartographic display, including preparing maps of Southern states, for Union field commanders. [26] There were more poor Northern counties than Southern, with the major poor region of the country being the Northwestern and Midwestern frontier area of Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where many counties had incredibly low wealth. 2,489,836 white soldiers 178,975 African American soldiers 3,530 Native American troops Enlistment strength for the Confederate Army ranges from 750,000 to 1,227,890. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. The dominant political figure of this era was Andrew Jackson, who opened millions of acres of Indian lands to white settlement, destroyed the Second Bank of the United States, and denied the right of a state to nullify the federal tariff. But if the U.S. is headed toward declaring war on itself, again, it would have to be unimaginably bloody to come close to what happened more than 160 years ago. The populations of three other states New Hampshire, Maine, and South Carolina were also virtually unchanged. > Population in 1870: 1,055,000 ranked 15 out of 34, Sponsored: Find a Qualified Financial Advisor. [7], A 1984 journal article by Claudia Goldin and Kenneth Sokoloff suggested that the South misallocated labor compared to the North, which more eagerly embraced women and child labor in its factories to push forward industrialization due to their relative value to Northern agriculture being lesser than in Southern agriculture. > Population in 1870: 1,457,000 ranked 7 out of 34, Michigan The best of the best: the portal for top lists & rankings: Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy: Show sources information Black and slave population of the United States from 1790 to 1880 [Graph]. In 1910, he argued in "The Decadence of the Plantation System" that slavery was an unprofitable relic that persisted because it produced social status, honor, and political power. The North and South before the Civil War Population in the South The population in the South was made up of Europeans 9mostly Scotch-Irish descent) and enslaved Africans. Give Me Liberty! Part of Olmsteds portrayal undoubtedly arose from the alien nature of Southern life to his New York and New England trained eyes but much of it can be attributed to his extreme hostility to the institution of slavery. > Population in 1870: 331,000 ranked 28 out of 34, Virginia Thus to include them as potential property holders slightly distorts the true wealth distribution. windowHref = windowHref.replace(/'/g, "%27"); > Population in 1860: 1,231,000 ranked 6 out of 34 Historical Data Black and slave population in the United States 1790-1880 Published by Aaron O'Neill , Jun 21, 2022 There were almost 700 thousand slaves in the US in 1790, which equated to. This essay was written in 1982 under the direction of Emory Thomas at the University of Georgia and was originally titled, The Affluent Section: The South on the Eve of the War Between the States.. In the years that followed, this period was romanticized by historical revisionists to protect three central assertions: that the Confederate cause was heroic, that enslaved people were happy and satisfied, and that slavery was not the primary cause of the war. > Population in 1860: 791,000 ranked 14 out of 34 [25] North=free states; South=slave states; The Northern divisions include only free states; Counties with incomplete totals were omitted form the calculations. The overall population rose from about 5 million to 19 million during that time. > Population in 1870: 125,000 ranked 33 out of 34, District of Columbia Accessed July 17, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010460/population-union-states-1860-1870-thousands/, US Census Bureau. In fact the Border states had as high a percentage of these counties as the Northern states, with the percentage in the Confederate States being only 8.4 percent. [12] Diance Lindstrom, Southern Dependence Upon Interregional Grain Supplies: A Review of the Trade Flows, 1840-1860, in The Structure of the Cotton Economy, 101. Jun 21, 2022 This statistic shows the population of the United States in the final census year before the American Civil War, shown by race and gender. > Population in 1860: 776,000 ranked 15 out of 34 Jun 21, 2022 This graph shows the total population of the Union states of the US, from the censuses collected directly before and after the American Civil War. Overview and forecasts on trending topics, Industry and market insights and forecasts, Key figures and rankings about companies and products, Consumer and brand insights and preferences in various industries, Detailed information about political and social topics, All key figures about countries and regions, Market forecast and expert KPIs for 1000+ markets in 190+ countries & territories, Insights on consumer attitudes and behavior worldwide, Business information on 70m+ public and private companies, Detailed information for 39,000+ online stores and marketplaces. > Population in 1860: 175,000 ranked 30 out of 34 > Population in 1870: 785,000 ranked 20 out of 34, Massachusetts Other travelers portrayed a much different picture of Southern life. Droughts as severe as the 1860 one which William L. Barney exploits in his book The Secessionist Impulse were quite rare. The best of the best: the portal for top lists & rankings: Strategy and business building for the data-driven economy: Show sources information Her evidence also shows the colonial South to have had the greatest number of very wealthy men.[33]. font-weight: 500; It is not coincidental that the poorest regions were the areas of least support. Numerous books on Southern history speak of such terms as the slaveholding dynasty, the proud Southern barons,' and others. [27] Among many descriptions see J.S. The wealthiest state per capita then is the poorest in per capita income todayMississippi. [9] Their arguments were further developed by Robert Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, who argued in their 1974 book, Time on the Cross, that slavery was both efficient and profitable, as long as the price of cotton was high enough. "Most farmers in the South had small-to-medium-sized farms with few slaves, but the large plantation owner's wealth, often reflected in the number of slaves they owned, afforded them considerable prestige and political power. [13] In an agricultural economy like the antebellum Souths crop failures occurred some years and caused a dislocation in food supplies. Virginia, home to the Confederate capital of Richmond, dropped from seventh to tenth place, with almost no change in population. Similarly, the sampled farms were self-sufficient in meat production. if (windowHref.indexOf('?') Powered by If the slaves had been free they would have been in a position to accumulate wealth, but that was not the situation of 1860. > Population in 1860: 1,350,000 ranked 5 out of 34 ALSO READ: The 12 Wars With the Most American Deaths. Thus Southern wealth may help explain why the North was so willing to wage a major war against Dixie. National Historical Geographic Information System, "1860 Census Records - What Questions did the census ask? Currently, you are using a shared account. > Population in 1870: 1,184,000 ranked 12 out of 34, Illinois Civilian Occupations Please create an employee account to be able to mark statistics as favorites. > Population in 1870: 91,000 ranked 34 out of 34, Pennsylvania 1860 - 89.01% (London: Fisher, Son & Co., [no date]), especially Vol II, 126-128; Lester B. Shippee, Ed., Bishop Whipples Southern Diary, 1843-1844 (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1937), especially 30 and 84; and A. [Online]. Schlesinger thought it difficult to conceive of a more objective critic of Southern life. Ibid., xlvi. They take for granted that the region which has been the poorest since that watershed was always so. To use individual functions (e.g., mark statistics as favourites, set > Population in 1870: 217,000 ranked 32 out of 34, South Carolina Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. The extensive data which has been gathered by students of the Southern economy and which can be gleaned from the published census data demonstrate that the antebellum Souths economy was a vibrant, growing one at least as prosperous as that of the North, supporting a free population with a per capita wealth almost twice the Norths, and more so if the South be defined as the Confederate States. [11] Engerman, The Antebellum South: What Probably Was and What Should Have Been, in The Structure of the Cotton Economy, 127-137. Men such as Frederick Law Olmsted described graphically the unfavorable, even wretched living conditions of many of the Southerners they met, Olmsted even asserting that nine-tenths of the neighbors of gentlemen he met for a hundred miles around them lived in a manner which, if witnessed at the North, would have made them objects of compassion to the majority of our day-laborers.[1]. [citation needed] His conclusions about the economic decline of slavery were challenged in 1958 by Alfred H. Conrad and John R. Meyer in a landmark study published in the Journal of Political Economy. To use individual functions (e.g., mark statistics as favourites, set > Population in 1870: 2,665,000 ranked 3 out of 34, Oregon This led to a sharp division in class in the southern states, between the landowning "master" class, yeoman farmers, poor whites, and slaves; while in the northern and western states, much of the social spectrum was dominated by a wide range of different laboring classes. The southern part of the United States was vastly different from the New England area. Similar greater levels of inequality among Southerners obtained for percentile brackets above one percent and below 40 percent, at which level the proportion of total wealth held became almost identical. The depth of that wealth, its extension throughout society on a close par with the North, helps explain why the masses of Southerners supported secession and the Confederacy. url("//cdn2.editmysite.com/fonts/SQ_Market/sqmarket-medium.woff") format("woff"); > Population in 1870: 1,071,000 ranked 14 out of 34, Ohio As a result, several European nations began to colonize the Americas to take advantage of rich natural resources and encourage exports. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Timely Abbeville Institute articles and news delivered directly to your inbox. The total population included 3,953,762 slaves. Objections in South Carolina to federal tariffs led to the Nullification Crisis in 1833. The very face of extreme poverty in the South after the Civil War among large numbers of both its black and white citizens has done much to bolster the belief that the antebellum South was poor, as has the relative raking of the Southern states at the bottom of almost every economic index since that great conflict. The discrepancy between the per capita wealth of these Upper Southern states and the Lower South was even slightly greater than that between the Border states and the Upper South. But if the U.S. is headed toward declaring war on itself, again, it would have to be unimaginably bloody to come close to what happened more than 160 years ago. ", several European nations began to colonize the Americas, "1850 US Census, Chapter V: Slave Population of the US", "The Southern Argument for Slavery [ushistory.org]", "Lost Cause Textbooks: Civil War Education in the South from the 1890s to the 1920s", "Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery", "The Relative Productivity Hypothesis of Industrialization: The American Case, 1820 to 1850", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antebellum_South&oldid=1160635534, This page was last edited on 17 June 2023, at 20:46.