Data Literacy for Social Studies, Enslaved Population as a Percentage of the Total Population in Each State, 1860

We created this graph using a table from the 1860 U.S. Census to illustrate the proportion of the enslaved population relative to the total population in each slaveholding state. The spreadsheets found here include the original table, a recreated table with selected data, and the graph. In South Carolina and Mississippi, enslaved people constituted over 50% of the total population, and in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, they accounted for over 40% of the total population. The large proportion of enslaved people in these Southern states is a reflection of slavery's critical role in the Southern economy and illustrates how central the issue of slavery was in states' decisions to secede from the Union.