Statistics of slavery.
According the
United States Census for 1850, the number of slaves then in the
United States was 3, 204,013, distributed as follows:
Alabama, 342,844;
Arkansas, 47,100; District of Columbia, 3,687;
Delaware, 2,290;
Florida, 39,310;
Georgia, 381, 682;
Kentucky, 210,981;
Louisiana, 244,809;
Maryland, 90,368;
Mississippi, 309,878;
Missouri, 87,482;
New Jersey, 236;
North Carolina, 288,548;
South Carolina, 384,984;
Tennessee, 239,459;
Texas, 58,161;
Virginia, 472,528; Territories, 26.
In 1776, the slaves were as follows:
Massachusetts, 3,500;
Rhode Island, 4,373;
Connecticut, 6,000;
New Hampshire, 629; New York, 15,000;
New Jersey, 7,600;
Pennsylvania, 10,000;
Delaware, 9,000;
Maryland, 80,000;
Virginia, 165,000;
North Carolina, 75,000;
South Carolina, 110,000, and
Georgia, 16,000.
Total in 1776,502,132.
The first introduction of
African slaves was in 1620, by a Dutch vessel which brought twenty from
Africa to
Virginia.
In his work upon the slave trade,
Mr. Carey, of
Pennsylvania, says ‘ "the trade in negro slaves to the
American colonies was too small before 1750 to attract attention."’ The same writer says that the slaves numbered 55,850 in 1714 of which 30,000 were brought from
Africa.
The importations between 1715 and 1750 are estimated by
Mr. Carey at 90,000; between 1751 and 1760, 35,000; between 1761 and 1770, 74,000; between 1771 and 1790, 34,000; between 1790 and 1808, 70,000.--Total, 333,000.
The number in the last- mentioned decade is considered by the census to be evidently too small.--
Charleston alone, in the first four years of that decade, imported 30,075, which were consigned to 91 British subjects, 88 citizens of
Rhode Island, 10 French subjects, and 13 natives of
Charleston.
Foreigners and New Englanders always conducted the traffic.
Making a correction for
Mr. Carey's under-estimate, the whole number of Africans at all times imported into the
United States will not exceed 400,000.
Thus the number of Africans and their descendants in this country is nearly eight or ten to one of those that were imported, whilst in the
British West Indies there are not two persons remaining for every five of the imported and their descendants.
This is shown by
Mr. Carey as follows: Imported into
Jamaica previously to 1817, 700,000 negroes, of whom and their descendants but 311,000 remained after 178 years to be emancipated in 1833.
In the whole
British West Indies, imported, 1,700,000, of whom and their descendants 660,000 remained for emancipation, the rest having been previously emancipated by death, the result of the hard treatment they received from the philanthropical nation that is so very much concerned about American slavery.
Conventions of delegates of
Virginia and
North Carolina anticipated the Continental Congress of 1774 in resolving to discontinue the slave trade.
On the 1st of March, 1807, Congress passed an act against importations of Africans into the
United States after January 1st, 1808. An act in
Great Britain in 1807 also made the slave trade unlawful.
Denmark made a similar prohibition as to her colonies, to take effect after 1804.
The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, pronounced for the abolition of the trade.
France abolished it in 1807.
Spain, to take effect after 1820.
Portugal abolished it in 1818.
The slave trade continued in despite of the abolition.
The average number of slaves exported from the coast of
Africa averaged 85,000 per annum from 1798 to 1805; and from 1835 to 1840 there was a total of 135,810; in 1846 and 1847, it was 84,000 per annum.
Between 1840 and 1847, 249,800 were taken to
Brazil and 52,027 into the
Spanish colonies.
Slavery was abolished in
Pennsylvania in 1780.
In
New Jersey, it was provisionally abolished in 1784; all children born of a slave after 1804 to be made free in 1820.
In
Massachusetts, it was declared after the Revolution that slavery was virtually abolished by their constitution (1780). In 1784 and 1797,
Connecticut provided for a gradual extinction of slavery.
In
Rhode Island, after 1784, no person could be born a slave.
The ordinance of 1787 forbid slavery in the territory northwest of the
Ohio.--The constitutions of
Vermont and
New Hampshire abolished slavery.
In New York it was provisionally abolished in 1799, twenty-eight years ownership being allowed a slave born after that date; and in 1817 it was enacted that slavery was not to exist after ten years, or 1827.
There were 1,602,535 male, and 1,601,778 female slaves in this country in 1850.
