If only like 2% of Americans owned slaves, and assuming the south

>>1590782

>were cotton farms like today's megacorps?

Yes except even more ingrained in society and the economy. Keep in mind those 6% of southern white slave holders made up majorities in all southern legislatures. They controlled the south.

>>1590782
"King Cotton" wasn't a meme.

Remember the 3/5ths compromise? People were quick to point out that enslaved people didn't count as "people" in terms of voter representation, and that pissed off the Southerns who'd lose political power. So, they wanted representation, giving their states more political power. The North was like "so they're subhuman sometimes?"

These kinds of political shenanigans are everywhere in the history of the American South

>>1590782
2% didn't just own 1 slave. They usually employed dozens to hundreds.

So the population of slave to non-slaves are around 20% - 80% instead of 2%.

>>1590782
>If only like 2% of Americans owned slaves

Is that all Americans, or a national average that counts free states? Also going by household is just a better measure.Or by what pecant of the population was enslaved. In most states (other then dirt poor Texas that had very few rich people) most of the slave were owned by a small part of the population. In Texas there was only two house holds with more then 100 slaves, with the runners ups being 78 used to run warehouses in Galveston and 55 used to run a brick factory in Houston.

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html

A important side note is that based on the growth of slave population in the US either early census under counted the population or there was a very active illegal importing of slaves when into the 1850s. My professor of Texas History told me that he believes a under counting is far more likely simply because in the 1840 and 1850 census whole towns in a number of western states were not listed. If whole towns were missed then the communities that were listed can not really be trusted for a full head count either.

2% number is bogus and comes from a flawed methodology.

The way you get 2% is by dividing the TOTAL population of both north & south (including women & children who didn't own slaves) by the total # of slaveholders.

The problem with this is that it doesn't accurately reflect slaveholding in the south (the area where slavery actually existed). On the eve of the civil war about 26% of households in the south owned slaves with numbers reaching as high as nearly 50% in South Carolina & Mississippi.

thanks all

>>1592054
interesting, and how many were owned in the north?

>>1592100
legally 0

>>1590782
>Were cotton farms like today's megacorps or something?
South Carolina produced so much rice they actually sold it to Asia. To ASIA. You do the math.

>>1592147
It was illegal in the north? All of its states?

>>1592189
Unless you count Maryland & Delaware (and parts of Missouri) as "The North"