Chapter 91: The Breadth Of Slave Ownership In The South

Distribution Of Slaves

It’s estimated that 30% of all white families across the early southern states own slaves – with the incidence ranging from a high of 70% in Georgia to a low of 18% in Maryland.    

Percent Of Families Owning Slaves

Starting with a white population of 4.8 million in 1840 and assuming an average of six people per household, there are just over 800,000 “families” in total across the South.  

Thirty percent of that number yields some 240,000 families who are owners of the 2.5 million enslaved blacks. The distribution of these slaves is sharply skewed. 

Thus about 70% of all slave-holders run small to mid-sized farms with under ten slaves, while only 12% have the twenty or more required to operate actual plantations.  

But the real “tycoon elites” of the South comprise only about 8,000 families who own roughly 600,000 enslaved blacks.  

Estimated Distribution Of Slaves In 1840

While slave owners are overwhelmingly white men and women, a small number are free blacks. In South Carolina, for example, data from 1840 show 402 free blacks owning 2,002 slaves, or an average of five per family. The highest ownership among free blacks traces to three sugar plantations in Louisiana, with 215 slaves belonging to Nicholas Metoyer and his family, 152 to a  widow, Ciprien Richards and her son, and another 70 to Antoine Dubuclet and his wife, Claire.

The Southern Planter Tycoons

Twenty Largest Slave Owners Across The South