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The 1850 and 1860 Census, Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants
Table of Contents
1. Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants: A Controversial Record
A. Introduction to the Congressional Debates
D.
The Census Bill Becomes Law
3. 1850 Enumerators' Instructions
4. 1860 Census, Schedule 2,
Instructions and Differences
B. Locating the Dwellings of the Enslaved
A Note about Schedule 3, Mortality
__________________________________________
1. Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants: A Controversial Record
The Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants,
used in the 1850 and 1860 Censuses, is one of the fundamental documents we use
to research the slavery period; perhaps only probate and deed records are used
more often. Yet, this part of the census is one of the most problematic, more
because of what it omits than because of what it tells us. Drafted for the first US Census that
originally planned to name every inhabitant in the country, Schedule 2 was
altered to prevent recording slaves’ names and other personal information. This essay will examine:
• How Congress developed the 1850 Census, Schedule 2
• Enumerator’s Instructions for Schedule 2
• Differences between the 1850 and 1860 Schedule 2
• Common issues and problems in interpreting Schedule 2
Besides introducing the new
researcher to these frequently-misunderstood sources, I hope to stimulate
discussion from all who have used Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants, for
genealogical or historical research, especially on the topic of interpreting
the information in these admittedly frustrating schedules.
Even professional historians
have sometimes misunderstood and misrepresented Schedule 2 as a document that
proves slave owners ignored the humanity of slaves. Edwin L. Ayers, on his
educational documentary website, Valley of
the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
(http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/govdoc/slave_census.html), calls Schedule 2
the “Slaveowners Census” as if this were the actual
title of the schedule. In his description of Schedule 2, Ayers portrays white
southerners, not as deeply conflicted and neurotic products of their own
stubborn devotion to a peculiarly oppressive institution, but as
cartoon-quality villains, monstrously devoid of any human recognition of the
enslaved: “So important was slavery that the census takers maintained a
separate book to list all the slaveowners and their
property. Chillingly enough, the census takers were not interested in the names
of individual slaves but only in their age, sex, and skin shade.” This false characterization of census takers
fails to acknowledge that it mattered not what census takers were “interested”
in, but, rather, what their instructions dictated to them to record. There is ample evidence that census takers
not only knew much more about the individual slaves than they were authorized
to record, but that the exclusion of slaves’ names and other data from the
census actually made the census taker’s tasks far more difficult than if
similar data had been recorded for slave and free.
The history behind the census
of Slave Inhabitants suggests how representatives of the slaveocracy
were fully conscious that naming each slave in the 1850 census would give
public recognition to the humanity of each slave roughly on a par with the
dignity afforded to whites who were all to be named in Schedule 1. By amending
Schedule 2 to make it anonymous, southern senators deliberately obscured as
much of the slaves' humanity as possible, for political reasons.
With all its flaws, the 1850
and 1860 Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants, is an indispensable tool for the study
of American slavery and for the search for ancestors who might be enumerated
therein. Although Schedule 2 seems a shabby travesty when compared with
Schedule 1, it does enumerate—no matter how inefficiently and how flawed the method—the
enslaved population of the
Thanks to the
Library of Congress’ American Memory project (homepage http://memory.loc.gov),
we have the entire series of published Congressional debates online. The
antebellum series, under the title The Congressional Globe, is available
at the link below. Unless otherwise stated, all my references are to page
numbers in the Globe, 31st congress, 1st Session, searchable at the
following webpage:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcglink.html#anchor31
In the midst of an
acrimonious exchange on the Senate floor between William H. Seward of New York
and William R. King of Alabama, over whether the 1850 census data could show
the quality of life of slaves in the South, Thomas J. Rusk of Texas complained
to Seward, “It is to be regretted, sir, that we cannot do anything here without
having this interminable question brought up. It must, it seems, be brought
forward when we have only the census bill up for discussion.” (page 675)
Rusk should not
have been surprised. The first thing you notice about the debates in Congress
in the 1840s and 1850s is how often the topic of slavery appeared. It permeated
virtually every discussion as a few vehemently anti- and pro-slavery
Congressmen used every opportunity to agitate the issue in their respective
houses. Each session saw a pile of petitions from hundreds of Northern citizens
for the abolition or restriction of slavery (see, just for example, on page 814, the 37 anti-slavery petitions
introduced on 24 April 1850)—all of which were routinely tabled, but which, nevertheless,
fanned the embers of hostility between Northern and Southern states. The 1850
sessions were particularly fiery on the subject of a fugitive slave bill which
was eventually signed into law
Congressmen used
existing myths and fabricated new ones to suit their own agendas. For example,
the speakers for the deep South portrayed slavery only as big plantations with
hundreds of slaves personally unknown to their owners.
Neither northern
abolitionists nor southern slaveocrats proposed
simply gathering exactly the same data for free persons and slaves in
1850. Some abolitionists were bent on
using census data to poke slaveholders in the eye on subjects like slaves’ health
and longevity (as explored through average ages and child mortality), the
migration patterns imposed by the internal slave trade, the illegal importation
of African slaves (as would be suggested by a place of birth in Africa after
1808), and the results–and future implications–of racial amalgamation. One Southern gentleman wanted to test a pet
theory that mulattoes were less fertile than blacks of “pure blood.”
Other Southerners
reacted defensively to prevent any inquiry that would undermine their message
that slaves were property, or would reveal slaves to be real persons with
families or social structure of any kind. Both sides, embroiled in debate over
the bill that would become the Fugitive Slave Act, were interested in knowing
how many runaway slaves might fall under the provisions of the act. The result
was the 1850 census we know today (and its virtual clone in 1860), in which the
millions of slaves are presented as nameless and faceless numbers.
J. D. B. DeBow, Superintendent the 1850 Census, recommended in his
report, Statistical view of the United
States (Washington: 1854), page 15, that the next census, 1860, should
combine Free, Slave and Mortality schedules into one form that used the same
questions for all persons. His
suggestion was ignored.
Debates in the
senate on
Confusion over the
mandate of the Census Board had opened the door for Congress to micro-manage
the content of each column in each schedule form. In part because of all the wrangling over the
cost of paper, it was not until April that debate finally touched the manner of
taking the census of slaves.
The first debates
over the 1850 census of slaves were, in one sense, a struggle over what the
slaveholders would allow the rest of the nation to know about slavery and
slaves. The Senate committee that drew up the first plans for the 1850 census
contemplated recording the names of all persons, slave and free. This led to the first controversy between
senators who thought that the census could be taken most efficiently and accurately
by naming the slaves, and those senators who opposed naming the slaves on
ideological grounds which they disguised as practical objections.
Many southern
senators surely believed that requiring a slave master to answer queries that
personalized individual slaves invested slaves with a dignity that was
incompatible with the institution that held them in bondage. Certainly there
was never any serious thought that slaves would have an input to the census—for
the census taker to enter the plantation quarters and to record personal facts
from the lips of slaves would be an unthinkable trespass on the prerogative of
slave masters, the same as if a census taker were to question a white child
instead of speaking to the father of the household.
More pointedly, if
a hard-core abolitionist like New York’s William H. Seward supported
enumerating the slaves by name, and even demanded more information about the
condition of the South’s slaves, pro-slavery senators
would reactively oppose him on principle.
To argue against
enumerated slaves by name, southern senators, led by
In specific
contrast to the
I have silently edited
the Congressional debates transcribed below to omit irrelevant remarks and
repetitive arguments, but I have marked ellipses ( . .
. ) only when splicing sentences or paragraphs. All page references are to the Congressional
Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session, available at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcglink.html#anchor31
On
Davis’ version of
the Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants, included twelve columns:
(1) Names of slave owners
(2) Names of slaves
Description: (3) Age, (4) Sex, (5) Color
(6) Place of Birth
If a female, the number of children she has had who are:
(7) No. she has had, (8) Known to be living, (9) Known to be dead
(10) Deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic.
(11) Degree of removal from pure white and black races.
(12) Remarks.
The printed
version of this form can be seen at
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsb&fileName=031/llsb031.db&recNum=436
Senator Arthur P.
Butler of South Carolina immediately rose with an amendment, saying: “I move to
amend, so that instead of requiring the names of the slaves to be taken, the
number only shall be required . . . and I now move to strike out the word
‘names’ and insert the word ‘number.’” (page 672)
David: “Then we
shall lose the benefit of the classification of ages.”
At this point,
Senator Joseph R. Underwood of
Senator George E.
Badger of
Some senators
laughed.
Underwood: “I have
no particular anxiety to see these classical names that have been suggested,
and whether it be
Senator Robert M.
T. Hunter of
Underwood: “Not at
all; there is a total mistake on that subject. The names of the white
population are not proposed to be published, nor are the names of the blacks.”
Only the statistical tables produced by counting the names, ages, et cetera,
were to be published.
Senator David L.
Yulee of
Senator Underwood
patiently repeated his explanation of how recording all the names would save
time for census takers, and would be more accurate, because all tabulation and
calculation would take place later, instead of on the spot. “I imagined myself
going about with the census taker,” said Underwood, “and how he would talk with
the head of a family, and how he would make his memorandums as he went along,
and the conclusion was irresistible that he would do the business faster by
merely putting down the name and age” (pages 672-3).
Senator Jeremiah
Clemens of
Underwood shot
back: “If the slave owner cannot give the name of the children, how is he to
give the age?”
Clemens: “He knows
how many children there are, and can tell about the time they were born. Say
that he has a negro woman of the name of Eliza with four children—he can state
about the time each was born. As to their names, he would not know anything
about that until the children had reached the age of twelve or fourteen.”
Underwood: “I
cannot speak for the large negro owners in the South,
but I can of that description of people and the negroes in my own State. And I
venture to say that there is no plantation in my quarter, although the slaves
are nothing like as numerous as they are in the South, but what the owner can
tell you the name of every person on the plantation, and that without hesitation.
We generally keep a record of their names and ages. And I should suppose that
while the farmers of the South were recording, according to the suggestion of
the Senator from
Clemens: “I did
not say that they had a record of their ages, but merely that they could tell
very nearly what they were.”
Underwood: “Well,
if there was any record of their ages I should suppose it would be connected
with their names. If no record is kept of the age, then it has to be guessed
at, and the name may as well be guessed at also, for it is wholly immaterial.
But you must describe the children in some way, or take and put them down as
child number one, child number two, and give the age of each. It will do just
as well to designate them by numbers as by name, provided it secures the basis
of the calculation which it is necessary to make afterwards. An oath that it is
the correct name of the child is not required, and if the age of a child can be
given, so can a name, and if all are given the same name it makes no
difference. . . . The idea suggested,
that the farmer will not know the names of his slaves makes no sort of
difference. He can know as much about the names as the age; and all we can
expect is, to come as nearly to what is precisely correct as possible, and that
by the safest and most correct means. I have nothing more, I believe, to say on
this particular subject.”
Senator Butler’s
amendment, to replace slaves’ names with numbers, was then put to a vote and
passed.
After a heated debate on 9
April 1850 between Senator Joseph R. Underwood of Kentucky and South Carolina’s
Senator Arthur P. Butler, the Senate passed Butler’s amendment to the census bill,
an amendment that replaced slaves’ names with numbers, thereby perpetuating a
public anonymity for over three million persons held in bondage as chattels in
the South.
None of his colleagues
challenged Senator Butler with the fact that, in the late antebellum period,
less than three percent of slaveholders owned 50 or more slaves—in other words,
In the next phase of the
debates, Senator William R. King of
Senator William R. King of
The motion to strike “places
of birth” from Schedule 2 was put to a vote and passed.
Before we watch Senator King
demolish more of Schedule 2, let us take a closer look at his argument about
slave birthplaces. Neither the owners nor the slaves themselves (according to
King) could be expected to know their birthplaces—and yet, he asserts, “They
are known to have been born within the slave states.” Suppose, however, that some
of those slaves had been born in northern states whose laws had required them
to be emancipated at a certain age, but whose owners had illegally sold them
South rather than lose the investment—states like
Immediately after winning
passage of his first amendment, King re-entered the debate to propose another:
“I have another proposition to make, and Senators, I think, will all perceive
the propriety of it. In schedule two are the following words: ‘if a female, the
number of children she has had, known to be alive, known to be dead.’ Now, sir,
it is impossible to ascertain the number of children upon a plantation that any
woman has had. The woman herself, in nine out of ten cases, when she has had
ten or fifteen children, does not know how many she has actually had.” This
brought a laugh.
King continued, “No, sir, she
cannot tell. The owner certainly does not know; the manager of the estate does
not know, because managers are frequently changed. One or two children may be
born while an individual is manager of an estate, and others may be born after
his place is supplied by another. There is no mode by which you can ascertain
except through the medium of the woman, and she cannot tell. Where is the
advantage, then, of filling up considerable space with this item, and swelling
the document without getting any information at last?”
Davis of Massachusetts offered
a half-hearted response: “I hope that the column will be allowed to remain,
although I do not know that it is very material.”
King: “Not at all. . . . I
want the census to be taken with as much care as possible. I want all the
people of the
Underwood: “These tables, in
reference to the slave population, which were adopted by the committee, were
adopted in compliance with the wishes of southern gentlemen. . . . There are a
number of philosophical inquiries which they were in pursuit of, as well as the
mere basis of representation. . . . Hence it is, the action of the committee on
this subject was not confined simply to an enumeration of the inhabitants, but
to the effect of various localities on health and longevity; to the effect of
climate, the condition of the colored race, and all matters of importance in
reference to the contemplated object. You will find in these tables that we
require, not only the age and sex, but the color of the person; and we find in
another column the degree of removal from pure blood is required to be stated;
and this inquiry, in reference to the number of children which each woman may
have had, I can inform my honorable friend, was inserted, as far as I know, at
the instance of a southern gentleman” (page 674). Later in the same debate
(page 676), Underwood revealed that this gentleman “believed that a certain class
of colored people had fewer children than a certain other class; and he
believed that the average duration of the lives of the children of the darker
class was longer than the that of the children of the lighter colored class, or
the mixed.”
Exasperated at the erosion of
columns from the table he had labored so long to construct in committee,
Underwood exclaimed, “If you do not intend to get the information in its
ramifications, as I had suggested, you may as well strike out the whole table,
and send your deputy marshal into a plantation merely to ascertain the number
of slaves, so far as the basis of representation is concerned, and you will
then get clear, as has been suggested by the Senator from North Carolina, of
all this increase at the start; and I suppose that the Senator from Alabama
voted with him” (page 674).
King: “Certainly.”
Underwood: “Well, I am vastly
surprised at the course he is taking now. If he succeeds in all the amendments
that he is proposing, it will come down to the basis of his argument. . . . I
think you that you ought to retain the name, age, number of children, and
everything, if you wish to get at anything that will be practically useful
hereafter, in reference to this class of population. There is one practical use
to which this information may be applied, as everybody knows, and it is
insurance on lives. The whole table, in regards to longevity, and everything
connected with the number and age of children, will furnish information on
which valuable tables may be constructed, if you continue them for a series of
years. . . . This would be the
commencement. If it is not proper to begin at all, strike out the whole table,
and bring it to what my honorable friend from
Underwood, clearly losing his argument,
was desperately grasping at straws—did he really expect Senators to design a
national census to explore the vigor of mulattoes, or to provide actuarial data
for the insurance industry?
Senator Solon Borland of
Underwood continued to argue
unconvincingly for the value of exploring “whether an individual is a quadroon,
a mulatto, or any other proportion of blood” (page 675).
Just as it seemed the fires of
debate on this issue would soon to be extinguished along with Underwood’s hopes
for his version of the slave schedule, Senator William H. Seward of
Of course, Seward was
sarcastically taunting King with one of the favorite arguments of pious
pro-slavery writers, that Africans were better off as
slaves in
King swallowed the bait, hook,
line and sinker: “I am not at all surprised to hear the senator from
King continued, “Sir, I have
listened to the Senator’s remarks. I
will not characterize them: respect for myself and this body will prevent
me. He comes forward here on all
occasions, when the slightest opportunity is afforded him, to endeavor to
produce a feeling of prejudice against that section of the country in which I
live, in order to minister to that miserable fanatical spirit——”
The Vice President: “The
honorable Senator is out of order.”
King: “Well, sir, let the
Senator keep himself within the bounds usually prescribed to members of this
body, and not attempt, by a sneering manner and insidious language, to produce
an effect which he dare not do directly.”
Senator Thomas J. Rusk of
In his next breath, Rusk
described the use he feared would actually come from the census data: “It may
be used for the purposes of agitation; it may be used in stump oratory to
awaken prejudices in one section of the country against the other. . . . It is
of apiece with the proceeding which took place yesterday, when a petition
numerously signed was presented to this body, asking Congress to enroll the
slaves in the militia of this country. Now is this not irritating?” It was fears like these that motivated
After further debate of the
utility or futility of the data, the columns asking about each slave woman’s
children, and the column asking for “the degree of removal from pure blood”
were stricken from the form (page 677). Next,
In the Senate version of the
1850 Census, Schedule 2, slave owners and slaves were presumed jointly
ignorant. Because of this allegedly
impenetrable ignorance, slaves enumerated in the census would have no names, no
birthplace, and no maternal connection to their own children. Next, the House of Representatives would take
its turn at refining the Census Bill.
D.
The Census Bill Becomes Law
The debates in the House of Representatives
did not dwell on the details of Schedule 2 (Slave Inhabitants) as the Senate
debates had, but some southern representatives echoed the same accusations that
the census was designed to fuel abolitionist agitation. The House version added
the columns for “Fugitives from the state” and “Number manumitted,” but the
single most important amendment in the House ensured that belated, fractious
debate would not endanger the 1860 census. The final version of the census bill
was passed almost at the last minute, only one week before the census takers
were to begin their work.
On
Compared to the acrimonious
Senate debates, proceedings on the Census Bill in the House were contentious
but civil. Congressmen mainly debated whether the wording of the Constitutional
requiring a decennial census limited Congress to collecting only the bare information
necessary to allocate representation and taxation, or whether the Constitution
merely specified a minimum requirement, which could be supplemented by any
inquiries that Congress should desire to make.
Most of the House debates on the census bill argued the
constitutionality of asking more detailed personal information than any
Representative John K. Miller
of
Georgia Congressman Alexander
H. Stephens (future Vice-president of the Confederacy) suggested that the
census, in the form proposed, threatened the union: “It would be well for the
members of this House who were friendly to the permanent union of these States,
to recollect that it could be maintained only upon principle, and by confining
it to the objects for which the Union was formed. . . . Those objects were enumerated and specified
in the Constitution. . . . Would the
gentleman who had reported this bill inform him under what clause of the
Constitution he got the power to appropriate the money of the people of this
country to seek such information?” (page 812).
Among those who rose to answer
Stephens’ and others’ objections was Joseph M. Root from
Charles E. Clarke of New York
reminded Stephens that he had declared, in recent debates about whether or not
to ban slavery from the newly-settled western territories and states, that “no
government could stand or ought to stand, that brought its power in conflict
with the property of the people. The property to which the gentleman referred,
is property vested in slaves, which he was pleased to estimate at fifteen
hundred millions of dollars. I deemed the expression indefensible,
revolutionary; but since the sentiment is advanced in this House, and seems to
be entertained by others than the gentleman from Georgia, it is quite desirable
to know the ages as well as the numbers of the slaves, with the view of
ascertaining their value, and comparing that property with other property which
the same gentlemen seem to think deserves no protection, no encouragement. It
is quite desirable to know the positive and relative yield of agricultural
productions in different sections of the country, in order that we may see
whether it be wise to ingraft slavery upon the
immense territories which we have lately acquired” (page 840).
Clarke continued: “Let there
be light, was the command of Infinite Wisdom at the creation of the world. The
rule seems to be reversed here, in the government of a small part of the world;
and the cry of gentlemen here is, let there be darkness.” He then offered
examples of where the census might shine a light: “There is in the free States
a class of men entitled to all the privileges of citizenship there, who, if
they set foot in certain other States of this Union, are liable to be
imprisoned, and in certain contingencies to be sold as slaves, because it has
pleased God not to bestow upon them quite so white a skin as some of us wear.
Is it not desirable to know how numerous this class is, with the view of
ascertaining the practical value of a great principle of the Constitution?”
Clarke was doubtless referring to Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution,
which states, “The citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several States”—a section routinely violated by southern state laws targeting
free persons of color.
Clarke then suggested that the
census data could measure compliance with the 1808 U. S. ban on importing
slaves: “Would it not be worth while, if it were in our power, to ascertain the
lineage and the place of birth of the African race, in order, amongst other
things, to ascertain whether our laws excluding slaves from foreign parts are
violated or observed?”
Joseph A. Woodward of
In one of the lengthiest
speeches of the debate, John W. Howe of Pennsylvania presented his long list of
reasons for highly data in the census, among which was that census data as to
shades of color of the “colored population” would provide clues as to whether
“the whole human race originated from one common parentage.” Howe also wanted
determine the “various employments” of all the African slaves—although no
version of the census schedules ever included slaves’ occupation or employment,
and he never introduced an amendment to add this item
to Schedule 2 (page 862).
The most significant amendment
made in the House of Representatives passed on
A joint conference of members
from the House and senate met and resolved the differences between their
versions of the Census, so that the bill could pass on 20 May (pages
1027-1028). Three days later,
3. 1850
Enumerators' Instructions
To interpret the
entries in the 1850 Census, Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants, we must know what
the census-taker was supposed to record. The official title for the person who
collected the census data was “Assistant Marshall” but I will use the more common
terms “census taker” and “enumerator” interchangeably. Lemuel
Shattuck (1793-1859) drafted the instructions for enumerators. Shattuck, who
had been invited to
The source for the
following text is from the
EXPLANATION OF SCHEDULE 2—SLAVE INHABITANTS
This schedule is to be filled up in the following manner:
Insert in the heading the number or name of the district, town, city and the
county or parish, and of the state in which the slave inhabitants enumerated
reside, and the day of the month upon which the enumeration was taken. This is
to be attested on each page of each set, by the signature of the assistant
marshal. The several columns are to be filled up as follows:
1. Under heading
1, entitled "Name of slaveholders," insert, in proper order,
the names of the owners of slaves. Where there are several owners to a slave,
the name of the one only need be entered, or when owned by a corporation or
trust estate, the name of the trustee or corporation.
2. Under heading
2, entitled "Number of slaves," insert, in regular numerical
order, the number of all the slaves of both sexes and of each age, belonging to
such owners. In the case of slaves, numbers are to be substituted for names.
The number of every slave who usually resides in the district enumerated is to
be entered, although he may happen to be temporarily absent. The slaves of each
owner are to be numbered separately, beginning at No. 1, and a separate
description of each is to be given. The person in whose family, or on whose
plantation, the slave is found to be employed, is to be considered the
owner—the principal object being to get the number of slaves, and not that of
masters or owners.
3. Under heading
3, entitled "Age," insert, in figures, the specific age of
each slave opposite the number of such slave. If the exact age cannot be
ascertained, insert a number which shall be the nearest approximation to it.
The age of every slave, either exact or estimated, is to be inserted. If the
slave be a child which, on the 1st of June, was under 1 year old, the entry is
to be made by the fractional parts of a year, thus: One month, one-twelfth; two
months, two-twelfths; three months, three-twelfths, and so on to eleven months,
eleven-twelfths; keeping ever in view, in all cases, that the age must be
estimated at no later period than the 1st of June.
4. Under heading
4, entitled "Sex," insert the letter M for male, and F for
female, opposite the name, in all cases, as the fact may be.
5. Under heading
5, "Color," insert, in all cases, when the slave is black, the
letter B; when he or she is mulatto, insert M. The color of all slaves should
be noted.
6. Under heading 6
insert, in figures, opposite the name of the slave owner, the number of slaves
who, having absconded within the year, have not been recovered.
7. In column 7,
insert opposite the name of the former owner thereof, the number of slaves
manumitted within the year. The name of the person is to be given, although at
the time of the enumeration such person may not have held slaves on the 1st of
June. In such case, no entry is to be made in column No. 2.
8. Under the
heading 8 entitled "Deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic,"
the assistant should ascertain if any of these slaves be deaf and dumb, blind,
insane or idiotic; and if so, insert opposite the name or number of such slave,
the term deaf and dumb, blind, insane or idiotic, as the fact may be. If slaves
be found imprisoned convicts, mention the crime in column 8, and the date of
conviction before the number in the vacant space below the name of the owner.
The convict slaves should be numbered with the other slaves of their proper
owner.
My comments:
The instructions for Schedule 2 provide for a straightforward counting of
slaves in the districts where they lived. The following section is one of the
most important of the instructions: “The number of every slave who usually
resides in the district enumerated is to be entered, although he may happen to
be temporarily absent. . . . The person in whose family, or on whose
plantation, the slave is found to be employed, is to be considered the
owner—the principal object being to get the number of slaves, and not that of
masters or owners.” In other words, when the census-taker knocked on a door,
the head of household was expected to give an account of all slaves who lived
in that household or on that plantation. Presumably, in the case of absentee
owners, the overseer would meet the census-taker.
Two parts of this
instruction may require interpretation. If a slave was said to be “temporarily
absent,” what was the length of time that enumerators considered “temporary”?
If a slave were hired out to another person, what length of service would place
that slave in the category of one “found to be employed” in the hiring family,
as opposed to being merely “temporarily absent” from the owner? Since most
hired slaves seem to have been rented on an annual basis, from January through
Christmas, I suggest (as my unsupported opinion) that slaves hired by the year
were probably enumerated in the household of the person who had hired them. The
hiring person’s name would appear in the “Names of Slave Owners” column, rather
than the legal owner. Examples of enslaved persons “temporarily absent” might
include those out on a short-term hire or on loan, and runaways absent for less
than a year.
Any Indians who
were slaves are not differentiated in this census. This is consistent with
slaveholder ideology that all slaves were Negroes.
4. 1860 Census,
Schedule 2, Instructions and Differences
In his report, The
Seventh Census of the
The census form was modified for 1860 by adding a column for 'Number of Slave Houses', and there were differences in the instructions. What
follows is a verbatim transcript of the 1860 instructions, interjected with my
comparison of the 1850 instructions. The
text, below, is adapted from Steven Ruggles and
Matthew Sobek et al., Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0,
SCHEDULE No. 2.-SLAVE INHABITANTS.
This Schedule 1s
to be filled up in the following manner: The heading is to be filled up in all
respects after the manner of Schedule No, 1, omitting only the name of post
office.
[Instructions for
1860, Schedule 1, directed that page headings were to include “the lesser
division, as town, township, ward, or borough; then the name of the county and
State, with the date of taking; after that enter your own name and record the
name of the post office of the vicinage. Every day you will change the date and
on every page write your name. All the other entries are to be repeated so long
as the returns apply, but the moment you enter upon another town, township,
ward, borough, or county, you must change the heading to correspond."]
1. Owners of
Slaves,—Under heading No. 1 insert, in proper
consecutive order, the names of all owners of slaves. When slaves are the
property of a corporation, enter the name of the corporation. If held in trust
for persons who have attained to their majority, whose names as owners do not
elsewhere appear, the names of such persons may be entered, or their number, as
“John Smith and two others;” always provided that the “others” do not appear as
owners in other places. If held in trust for minors, give the number of such
minors. The desire is to obtain a true return of the number of owners.
[This instruction,
desiring a “true return of the number of owners” contrasts with the instruction
for 1850, which stated, “the principal object being to get the number of
slaves, and not that of masters or owners.”]
2. Number of
Slaves.—Under heading 2, entitled “Number of slaves,” insert, in regular
numerical order, the number of all the slaves, of both sexes, and of every age,
belonging to the owner whose name you have recorded. In the case of slaves,
numbers are to be substituted for names. The description of every slave, as
numbered, is to be recorded, and you are to enumerate such slaves as may be
temporarily absent, provided they are usually held to service in your
subdivision. The slaves of each owner are to be numbered separately, beginning
with the older at No. 1. The person in whose charge, or on whose plantation the
slave is found to be employed may return all slaves in his charge, (although
they may be owned by other persons,) provided they are not returned by their
proper owner. The name of the bona fide owner should be returned as proprietor,
and the name of the person having them in charge as employer.
[This is
essentially the same as for 1850, except that in the case of hired slaves, both
the owners’ names and the hirers’ names are to be recorded.]
3. Ages.—Under
heading 3, entitled “Age,” insert, in figures, the specific age of each slave
opposite the number of such slave. If the exact age cannot be ascertained
insert a number which shall be the nearest approximation thereto. The exact or
estimated age of every slave is to be inserted. If the slave be a child which
on the 1st day of June was less than one year old the entry is to be made by
fractional parts of a year, as directed in Rule 7, Schedule 1. Slaves who (born
previously) have died since the 1st day of June are to be entered as living,
and all details respecting them to be given with as much care as if the slave
were living. You are desired to give the names of all slaves whose age reaches
or exceeds 100 years.
[There was no provision
in the 1850 schedule for naming slaves over age 100]
4. Sex.—Under
heading 4, opposite each number, insert “m” for male, and “f” for female, in
all cases, as the fact way be. In the case of slaves it is very essential that
the sex be specified, because of the entire omission of name. The compensation
for all returns where this fact is omitted will be reduced.
5. Color.—Under heading 5, entitled “Color,” insert, in all cases
where the slave is black, the letter “B.” When he or she is a mulatto insert
“M.” You are to note the color of every slave. Those who are in any degree of
mixed blood are to be termed mulatto, “M.”
[The 1850
instructions did not define “mulatto”]
6.
Fugitives.—Under heading 6 insert, in figures, opposite the name of the owner,
a mark or number designating the fugitives who, having escaped within the year,
have not been returned to their owners. Such fugitives are to be described as
fully as if in possession of their masters. No allusion is to be made
respecting such as may have absconded subsequent to the 1st day of June; they
are to be recorded as if in possession of their proper owners.
7. No.
Manumitted.—In column No. 7, insert opposite the name of the former owner
thereof the number of slaves manumitted within the year ending on the 1st day
of June. The name of the person is to be given although at the time of the
enumeration, or on the 1st day of June, such person may have held no slaves.
The description of all the slaves manumitted may or may not be given at your
pleasure, but the number manumitted must be clearly expressed. If you describe
them separately, write “manumitted” under the name of the former owner in a
line with each one described. If the former owner of slaves manumitted within
the year should have died or removed, such circumstance is not to obviate the
necessity of their enumeration as directed.
8. Deaf and Dumb,
Blind, Insane, Idiotic.—You should be particular in every instance to inquire
whether any slave comes within the above description, and, if so insert the
fact in column 8, opposite the number and general description of such slave. If
slaves be found imprisoned convicts, mention the crime in column 8, and the
date of conviction in the vacant space No. 1. By carefully observing the
following schedule, you will experience no difficulty in making proper returns:
9. Number of Slave
Houses.—In column 9 you will insert the number of slave tenements or dwellings
on every farm and plantation, and in every family where slaves are held you
will inquire what number of separate tenements are occupied by slaves, and you
will insert the number in every instance on a line with the last slave
described as belonging to the person or estate whereof you are instituting
inquiry. We wish by this column to learn the number of occupied houses, the
abode of slaves, belonging to each slaveholder.
Below are some
issues to consider about how an enumerator carried out his instructions. The
answers for each county may be as different as the individual men who
enumerated the census. Schedule 2 is not as straightforward as it appears, which makes it a somewhat complex genealogical
tool.
• Did the
enumerator consistently identify hirers, trustees and guardians as well as the
slave owner, when the enslaved were employed by someone other than the owner?
My own research in
• How did the
enumerator interpret the length of time that made a “temporary absence” when
recording the number of “such slaves as may be temporarily absent, provided
they are usually held to service in your subdivision”?
• Were slaves
double counted? Yes, in some cases they were.
Afrigeneas researcher, Melvin Collier, found
his same ancestors counted in both
Perhaps about 15% of
slaves in the Antebellum South were hired out.
If a slave was hired out of the county for a year, was that a temporary
absence or not? Might the slave unintentionally be enumerated in both places? What about slaves hired by any one slave
owner to several other persons in the same county—how would the enumerator
avoid double-counting of either the slaves or slave owner? To follow his instructions correctly, the
census enumerator would have had to remember all slave owners that he had
already named previously in the schedule to avoid recording them again (except
for the allowable case of an owner of slaves employed by another—but even then
he would have to know whether or not those particular slaves had already been
counted).
The slaves were
enumerated at the master’s house, which was not necessarily near the slaves’
homes. Slaves were enumerated not at their own dwellings (where they could have
been sighted and confidently counted) but by an accounting from the lips of
slave masters who might be owners, hirers, or trustees, and who might not even
live in the same district as their enslaved laborers. This fact alone cautions us that the slave
enumeration data requires careful interpretation.
B. Locating the Dwellings of the
Enslaved
The congressional
framers of the census explicitly intended to keep enumerators from knocking on
the doors of slaves’ houses—and to preclude them from hearing any information
from the mouths of those houses’ occupants.
Information to complete Schedule 2 usually came from the same
householder who gave the data on free inhabitants in Schedule 1. This makes the order of visitation in
Schedule 1 critical to the interpretation of Schedule 2, but at the same time
divorces Schedule 1 (slave owner data) from the geography of schedule 2,
because slave masters did not necessarily live near their slaves. Many enslaved persons lived on the same
farms, or in the same houses, as their owners, but many did not. Slaves could:
• Live on the same lot or farm as the owner’s home
• Live on the property of the owner at some remote location
• Live on the farm or at the house of a person who hired them
• “Live out”—an illegal, but oft-tolerated, arrangement in which a slave
occupied a house separate from and without supervision from any white person.
Unlike persons
named in Schedule 1, who actually lived on the premises at which they were
enumerated, slaves enumerated in Schedule 2 could live almost anywhere as long
as they were “usually held to service” in that county. For example, some slave owners lived in town
with their house servants, while their field hands worked a plantation miles
away in the country.
Schedule 2 (column
9) asked for the number of slave houses on the assumption that most slaves
lived in structures separate from the dwelling-house of the master, such as the
familiar plantation slave quarters, built a discreet distance away from the big
house. Among yeoman slave owners and
townspeople, the most common slave house was probably the detached kitchen near
many farms and town houses (southerners often used the terms “kitchen” and
“negro house” interchangeably). The more slaves a farmer had, of course, the
more slave houses he (or she) would need.
Schedule 2 does
not tell who lived in each slave house—it merely reports a total number of
occupied slave dwellings. The census does not say who actually lived in these
“slave houses.” Occupants could have included persons owned by the same slave
master who owned the houses, persons held in trust, and persons hired from
others. Slaves reported as an owner’s
property might have lived elsewhere—the common exception being slaves who were
hired out at a distance to other masters; less common exceptions but more
problematical to any interpretation of Schedule 2 are slaves who “lived out”
apart from any master.
Although the
census instructions directed enumerators to replace slaves’ names with numbers,
a few enumerators recorded the names anyway, in error. Three copies of each
census schedule were supposed to have been made: one for the census bureau in
Washington, one for the State’s secretary of state, and the third to be
deposited in the local county courthouse.
Counties where Schedule 2 names slaves tend to be counties in the
so-called “
I have a different
theory to explain the existence of the Camden County, NC, document cited
below. I suggest that this copy with
slave names was the census-taker’s working copy, from which he copied the
smooth version (without names) for submission to
Counties known to
have slaves’ names in the 1850 or 1860 Census:
1850,
Extracts published in the Frontier Freedman’s Journal:
http://hometown.aol.com/angelaw859/ffj.html#VOLI1
1850, Scott
County, TN
http://www.tngenweb.org/scott/census_1850_slave_schedule.htm
1860 Boyd County,
KY
http://www.rootsweb.com/~kyboyd/Census/boydcountycensusindex/slave/
1860,
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=66569&ran=242410
1860, Hampshire
County, VA
http://www.afrigeneas.com/forumd/index.cgi?noframes;read=5536
A Note About Schedule 3, Mortality: Although slaves
are not named in Schedule 2, they ARE named in Schedule 3, Mortality (all
persons who had died during the year ending 1 June 1850). In some districts, both
the slave master and the slave are named, but in other districts, only the
slave is named, which makes identification with a slave owner (for genealogical
purposes) difficult. Whenever extracting from the Mortality schedules, ALWAYS
include all the names, even those of white people, because the mortality
schedule usually follows the order of Schedules 1 and 2, which means you have a
better chance of identifying the slave owner by comparing these three
lists. For the same reason, NEVER
rearrange the names in Schedule 3 in alphabetical order, because you destroy
any chance of identifying the deceased with their families or slave
owners.
Schedule 3 offers
another example of the census taker’s instructions forcing enumerators to omit
vital data about slaves. Instructions
told the enumerator to check a column for persons who were married at time of
death, but to leave this column blank for slaves. I have seen a schedule (1860, Upson County,
GA) where a census taker had started checking this block for married slaves,
then, apparently realizing his mistake, going back and crossing out the marks.
About the Author: David E. Paterson, AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum manager, was born in Scotland, UK, grew up in Seattle, WA, and lives in Norfolk, VA. He is married to the former Judy L. Moody of Memphis, TN. David is completing his MA in History from University of West Florida with a concentration on the American Old South and Reconstruction. David's slavery-related work has appeared in American Archivist, and Oxford University Press has commissioned him to write two biographies for the forthcoming African-American National Biography. His long-term research goal is to write a history of Upson County, GA.
23 Jun 2004 . 16 May 2015
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