Social History for Every Classroom

Search

Social History for Every Classroom

menuAmerican Social History Project  ·    Center for Media and Learning

Background Information on Slavery in the U.S.

These tables and statistics give basic facts about the growth and spread of slavery in the United States and some tables of statistics about slave populations.

1) Total Slave Population, United States

Year        Total Slaves        
1790          697,621        
1820        1,538,022            
1840        2,487,355
1860        3,953,760

2) Slave population in the United States, unlike almost the entire rest of the hemisphere grew by reproduction. 

3) American plantations relatively small

4) Second Middle Passage drives 1 million slaves to “West”

5) Slavery largely but not exclusively Southern

Source | American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2008.
Creator | American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
Rights | Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Item Type | Article/Essay
Cite This document | American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, “Background Information on Slavery in the U.S.,” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed March 28, 2024, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/533.

Print and Share