The Journal of Negro History Volume III Part 24

On March 4, 1780, soon after the establishment of the new system, he appeared at the land office in Richmond, Virginia, and was given three treasury warrants, each for four hundred acres of land in Kentucky.

The first and third of these warrants were not returned for the final recording until May 16, 1787, at which time Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued a final deed of 800 acres of land in Lincoln County, Kentucky, to Abraham Lincoln.[238] The second treasury warrant was not returned until July 2, 1798, more than a decade after the death of Abraham Lincoln and six years after Kentucky had become a State. At that time the warrant was presented with a record of the survey by Mordecai Lincoln, the eldest son of Abraham. After some period of investigation the deed for the four hundred acres in Jefferson County was turned over to Mordecai Lincoln on April 26, 1799.[239]

The result of this method of granting land was that Kentucky was settled by a comparatively few men who rented their property to tenants. A large number of the military bounties were never settled by the original owners but were farmed by the later incoming tenant cla.s.s. George Was.h.i.+ngton had been given five thousand acres and this land was actually settled by the poorer white element. In the case of the land warrant property it was true that it was usually granted to the poorer cla.s.s of early settlers but as in the instance of the Lincoln family the land soon pa.s.sed into the hands of the wealthier settlers either by purchase or through law suits. It is commonly stated that Daniel Boone thus became landless and was forced to migrate to Missouri.[240]

Thus we see that Kentucky was distinctly different from all the other settlements to the west of the Alleghenies in the original system of land tenure and she further inherited from her mother State of Virginia the ancient theory of a landed aristocracy which was based upon tenantry. The early inhabitants of Kentucky can be easily divided into three cla.s.ses, the landed proprietors, their slaves, and the tenant cla.s.s of whites. The second and third cla.s.ses tended to keep alive the status of the former and led to the perpetuation of the landed aristocracy. In Kentucky, however, the laws of descent were always against primogeniture and this resulted in the division of the lands of the wealthier cla.s.s with each new generation.

The inst.i.tution of slavery in Kentucky, as in every other State, depended for the most part upon the existence of large plantations.

The only reason Kentucky had such large estates was because of the method by which the land was given out by the mother State.

Economically Kentucky was not adapted to plantation life. The greater part of the State required then, as it still does, the personal care and supervision of the owner or tenant. The original distribution of land made this impossible and there grew up a large cla.s.s of landholders who seldom labored with their hands, because of the traditional system. A large number of inhabitants as early as 1805, Michaux found, were cultivating their lands themselves, but those who could do so had all the work done by Negro slaves.[241]

With pa.s.sing years, while Kentucky maintained slavery, it came to have a social system not like that in the South but one more like the typical structure of the middle nineteenth century West. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the absence of the policy of primogeniture in time came to distribute the lands over a much larger population. In the second place, while all the land in Kentucky had been granted by the year 1790, the patrician land-holding element was completely submerged by the flood of so-called plebeians who came in soon after Kentucky became a State. In 1790 there were only 61,133 white people in Kentucky, and although all the land had been granted, the white population in the next decade nearly tripled, reaching 179,871 in 1800, and this increase, at a slightly smaller rate, continued down to about 1820. Still further the nature of the soil made it more profitable for the wealthier landed cla.s.s to let out their holdings to the incoming whites who did their own work and in time came to own the property. "Each year increased this element of the state at the expense of the larger properties."[242]

POPULATION FROM 1790 TO 1860 WITH RATES OF INCREASE +=======================================================================+ | | |Per | |Per | |Per | |Per | | | White |Cent |Free |Cent |Slave |Cent | Total |Cent | | | |Incr. |Colored|Incr. | |Incr. | |Incr. | +----+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+--------------+------+ |1790| 61,133| | 114| | 11,830| | 73,077 | | |1800|179,871|194.22| 741|550.00| 40,343|241.02| 220,955 |202.36| |1810|324,237| 80.26| 1,713|131.17| 80,561| 99.69| 406,511 | 83.98| |1820|434,644| 34.05| 2,759| 61.06|126,732| 57.31| 564,317[243]| 38.82| |1830|517,787| 19.12| 4,917| 78.21|165,213| 30.36| 687,917 | 21.09| |1840|590,253| 13.99| 7,317| 48.81|182,258| 10.31| 779,828 | 13.36| |1850|761,413| 28.99| 10,011| 36.81|210,981| 15.75| 982,405 | 25.98| |1860|919,484| 20.76| 10,684| 6.72|225,483| 6.87|1,155,684[244]| 17.64|

A study of the growth of the slave and white population of Kentucky from 1790 to 1860 is necessary to an adequate understanding of the slave problem. It will be found advantageous to deal with two sets of figures--one relating to the slave population within the State and the other with the slave increase in Kentucky as compared with the general increase throughout the United States. It would not be of any value to compare the figures for Kentucky with those of any other State, for that would involve the discussion of local factors which are beyond the scope of this investigation.

First of all we shall take the census statistics for the State for all eight of the enumerations which were taken during the slavery era. The figures for the year 1790 were originally taken when Kentucky was a part of the State of Virginia, but they are included, since Kentucky became a State before the census was published. Furthermore they furnish an interesting light upon the growth of the slave population during the first decade of the new commonwealth. The important part of this table is in the increases, on a percentage basis, in the slave and white populations. Another viewpoint of the growth of the slave population may be seen in this little table:

RATIO OF SLAVES TO THE TOTAL POPULATION

Per Cent 1790 16.1 1800 18.2 1810 19.18 1820 22.4 1830 24.0 1840 23.3 1850 21.4 1860 19.5

Here it will be seen that the proportion of slaves increased down to 1830 and then began to decline. Most authorities are agreed that this was in a large measure due to the enactment of the law of 1833 forbidding the importation of slaves into Kentucky. But before dealing with that question it would be well to have before us the figures for the whole country at the same period.

FREE NEGRO AND SLAVE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1790 TO 1860, WITH RATES OF INCREASE

==================================================================== | Free Negro |Per Cent Increase| Slaves |Per Cent Increase | -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1790 | 59,557 | | 697,624 | | 1800 | 108,435 | 82.1 | 893,602 | 28.1 | 1810 | 186,446 | 71.9 |1,191,362 | 33.3 | 1820 | 233,634 | 25.3 |1,538,022 | 29.1 | 1830 | 319,599 | 36.8 |2,009,043 | 30.6 | 1840 | 386,293 | 20.9 |2,487,355 | 23.8 | 1850 | 434,495 | 12.5 |3,204,313 | 28.8 | 1860 | 488,070 | 12.3 |3,953,760 | 23.4 | --------------------------------------------------------------------

The facts seem more significant, if we compare the slave increase in Kentucky with that of the Negroes in the country as a whole. Bearing in mind that Kentucky was a comparatively new region when it became a State and that at that time slavery was firmly established along the seaboard, we are not surprised to find that the slave increase in Kentucky was much more rapid for the first three or four decades than it was in the nation as a whole. After the year 1830 the increase in the United States, on a percentage basis, was much greater than in Kentucky. It seems that the inst.i.tution started in with a boom and then eventually died down in Kentucky.

There were several reasons for this fact. A glance at the increase of whites in Kentucky for the last three decades will show that they were forging ahead while the slaves were relatively declining. This was due to a large amount of immigration of that cla.s.s of white people who were not slaveholding. A second factor was the non-importation act of 1833. About the same time there came to be a conviction among a large portion of the population that slavery in Kentucky was economically unprofitable. There is abundant ground for the position that the law of 1833 was pa.s.sed because of a firm conviction that there were enough slaves in the State. The only ones who could profit by any amount of importation were the slave dealers and beyond a certain point even their trade would prove unprofitable. If there was ever a single slaveholder who defended importation on the ground that more slaves were needed in Kentucky he never spoke out in public and gave his reasons for such a position.

Unfortunately there are few statistics concerning the number of slaveholders in Kentucky. Ca.s.sius M. Clay in his appeal to the people in 1845 stated that there were 31,495 owners of slaves in the State.[245] The same year the auditor's tax books showed that there were 176,107 slaves in Kentucky.[246] This would mean an average of 5.5 slaves for each owner. The accuracy of these figures is substantiated by those for the census of 1850 which gave 210,981 slaves held by 38,456 slaveholders or an average of 5.4 to each owner.

These holders were cla.s.sified according to the number of slaves held as follows:

Holders of 1 slave 9,244 Holders of over 1 and less than 5 slaves 13,284 Holders of 5 and under 10 slaves 9,579 Holders of 10 and under 20 slaves 5,022 Holders of 20 and under 50 slaves 1,198 Holders of 50 and under 100 slaves 53 Holders of 100 and under 200 slaves 5 38,385[247]

This distribution shows that, although the average number of slaves held may have been 5.4 for each slaveholder, 21,528 or 50 per cent of them held less than five slaves each, and that 34,129 or 88 per cent held less than 20 each. Of the 132,920 free families in the State only 28 per cent held any slaves at all. This was somewhat below the average for the whole South. The total number of families holding slaves in the United States, by the census of 1850, was 347,525. With an average of 5.7 persons to each family there were about 2,000,000 persons in the relation of slave owners, or about one third of the whole white population of the slave States. In South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana about one half of the white population was thus cla.s.sified. As stated above, this percentage in Kentucky was only twenty-eight.

This comparison can be more clearly shown by a table of the slave States from the census of 1850 showing the number of white people, the slaveholders, slaves, and the average number of slaves for each slaveholder.

====================================================================== | Whites | Slave |Per Cent | Slaves | Average per | | | holders |of Whites | | Holder | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Alabama | 426,514| 29,295 | 6.8 | 342,844| 11.6 | Arkansas | 162,189| 5,999 | 3.7 | 47,100| 7.8 | Florida | 47,203| 3,520 | 7.4 | 39,310| 11.1 | Georgia | 521,572| 38,456 | 7.3 | 381,622| 9.9 | Kentucky | 761,413| 38,385 | 5.0 | 210,981| 5.4 | Louisiana | 255,491| 20,670 | 8.0 | 244,809| 11.4 | Maryland | 417,943| 16,040 | 3.8 | 90,368| 5.6 | Mississippi | 295,718| 23,116 | 7.8 | 309,878| 13.4 | Missouri | 592,004| 19,185 | 3.2 | 87,422| 4.5 | North Carolina| 553,028| 28,303 | 5.1 | 288,548| 10.2 | South Carolina| 274,563| 25,596 | 9.3 | 384,984| 15.0 | Tennessee | 756,836| 33,864 | 4.4 | 239,459| 7.0 | Texas | 154,034| 7,747 | 5.2 | 58,161| 7.5 | Virginia | 894,800| 55,063 | 6.1 | 472,528| 8.5 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Among the fourteen real slaveholding States of the Union Kentucky stood ninth in the number of slaves in 1850, but was third in the number of slave owners and with the exception of Missouri had less slaves for each owner than any other State. From the third column of this table, however, we are rather surprised to find that not only in Missouri but in Arkansas, Maryland and Tennessee the number of slaveholders was smaller in proportion to the total white population than in Kentucky.

Value of Slaves at Value of Real and Personal Property $400 per Head Less the Value of Slaves

Alabama $137,137,600 $ 81,066,732 Arkansas 18,840,000 21,001,025 Florida 15,724,000 7,474,734 Georgia 152,672,800 182,752,914 Kentucky 84,392,400 217,236,056 Louisiana 97,923,600 136,075,164 Maryland 36,147,200 183,070,164 Mississippi 123,951,200 105,000,000 Missouri 34,968,800 102,278,907 North Carolina 115,419,200 111,381,272 South Carolina 153,993,600 134,264,094 Tennessee 95,783,600 111,671,104 Texas 23,264,400 32,097,940 Virginia 189,011,200 202,634,638

Helper in his _Impending Crisis_ made the following interesting table from the census figures for 1850. He set a perfectly arbitrary valuation of $400 on each slave, but, if one takes into account the infants and the aged unable to work, his general apprais.e.m.e.nt of the slave group is fair enough for the time and for a basis of comparison.

It will be seen at a glance that after taking out the value of the slaves in all the States Kentucky was the richest southern commonwealth.

From the three preceding tables it is apparent that while the Kentucky slaveholders represented about 28 per cent of the white population of the State, on the average they held less slaves than in the other Southern States. Slave property in Kentucky was a much smaller part of the wealth of the commonwealth than in the States to the south. The relatively large number of holders is to be explained by the type of slavery which existed in the State. Many persons held a few servants in bondage and those who held many slaves were very few in number.

The question of the sale of slaves from Kentucky into the southern market presents a much more formidable problem. The chief charge that the anti-slavery people made against Kentucky was that the State regularly bred and reared slaves for the market in the lower South.

What was the att.i.tude of the Kentucky slaveholder and the people in general on the question of the domestic slave trade? There is no doubt that in the later years of slavery there were sold in the State many slaves who ultimately found their way into the southern market notwithstanding the contempt of the average Kentucky slaveholder for the slave trade. This trend of opinion will be seen as we proceed. If the sentiment was decidedly against such human commerce how did so many slaves become victims of the slave trader?

There were five general causes which led to the sale of slaves in Kentucky: (1) When they became so unruly that the master was forced to sell; (2) when their sale was necessary to settle an estate; (3) when the master was reduced to the need of the money value in preference to the labor; (4) when captured runaways were unclaimed after one year; and (5) when the profit alone was desired by unscrupulous masters.

Many other reasons have been given, but a careful investigation of all available material confines practically every known case of sale to one of the above cla.s.sifications. Mrs. Stowe in her _Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_[249] maintained that the prevalence of the slave trade in Kentucky was due to the impoverishment of the soil beyond recovery and the decrease in the economic value of the slave to its owner. This argument is fallacious, for the very blue-gra.s.s region which held most of the slaves is today the most fertile section of the State.

As long as a slave conducted himself in accordance with the spirit of the slave code there was little chance of his owner selling him against his will. The president of the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1849 stated that in the interior of the State, where slaves were the most numerous, very few Negroes were sold out of the State and that they were mostly those whose bad and ungovernable disposition was such that their owners could no longer control them[250]. A true picture of the average master's att.i.tude has been given us by Prof. N. S. Shaler.

"What negroes there were," said he, "belonged to a good cla.s.s. The greater number of them were from families which had been owned by the ancestors of their masters in Virginia. In my grandfather's household and those of his children there were some two dozen of these blacks.

They were well cared for; none of them were ever sold, though there was the common threat that 'if you don't behave, you will be sold South.' One of the commonest bits of instruction my grandfather gave me was to remember that my people had in a century never bought or sold a slave except to keep families together. By that he meant that a gentleman of his station should not run any risk of appearing as a 'negro trader,' the last word of opprobrium to be slung at a man. So far as I can remember, this rule was well kept and social ostracism was likely to be visited on any one who was fairly suspected of buying or selling slaves for profit. This state of opinion was, I believe, very general among the better cla.s.s of slave owners in Kentucky. When negroes were sold it was because they were vicious and intractable.

Yet there were exceptions to this high-minded humor."[251]

When a master had a bad Negro about the only thing that could be done for the sake of discipline was to sell him. If the owner kept the slave, the latter would corrupt his fellows and if he were set free, the master would reward where he ought to punish. The human interest which the owner took in his servant when the demands of the inst.i.tution necessitated his sale is shown in the case of the Negro Frank, owned by A. Barnett, of Greensburg. Witness these words of the master in a runaway advertis.e.m.e.nt: "His transgressions impelled me, some years since to take him to New Orleans and sell him, where he became the property of a Spaniard, who branded him on each cheek thus, (B), which is plain to be seen when said negro is newly shaved. I went to New Orleans again last May, where, having my feelings excited by the tale Frank told me, I purchased him again."[252] After the master had gone to all this trouble in the interest of the slave the latter ran away shortly after his return to Kentucky.

[Transcriber's Note: In the previous paragraph, (B) actually appears as the letter B, rotated 90 degrees, counter-clockwise.]

It was often necessary to sell slaves in order to settle an estate. It was seldom possible for a man to will his property in Negroes without some divisions becoming necessary at the hands of the executor in the just interest of the heirs. These public auctions usually took place on court day, at the courthouse door and were conducted by the master commissioner of the circuit court. The following advertis.e.m.e.nt reveals the necessity and the procedure:

SALE OF NEGROES

By virtue of a decree of the Fayette Circuit, the undersigned will, as Commissioner to carry into effect said decree, sell to the highest bidder, on the public square in the city of Lexington, on Monday the 10th of March next, being county court day, the following slaves, to wit:

Keiser, Carr, Sally, Bob, Susan, Sam, Sarah and Ben; belonging to the estate of Alexander Culbertson, deceased. The sale to be on a credit of three months, the purchaser to give bond with approved security. The sale to take place between the hours of 11 o'clock in the morning and 3 o'clock in the evening.

February 26, 1834 JOHN CLARK, _Commissioner_[253]

On the same day the sheriff of the county might appear at the courthouse door in accordance with a previous announcement and auction off any unclaimed runaway that had been lodged in the county jail or hired out under his authority for a period of a year or more. The slaves thus sold were usually fugitives from the lower South who had been apprehended on their way to Ohio or Indiana. Although the utmost publicity would have been given to their capture, in accordance with the law, few of the planters of the far South seem ever to have claimed their property. The usual legal code in this matter is shown by the notice below:

NOTICE: Agreeably to an act of the General a.s.sembly, pa.s.sed January 11, 1845, I will, on the first Monday of May, 1846, before the Court House door, in the city of Louisville, sell to the highest bidder, on a credit of six months, the purchaser giving bond with good security, having the force and effect of a replevin bond, JOHN, a runaway slave, 18 or 19 years of age, 5 feet 3 or 4 inches high, a rather heavy built, supposed to be the property of Daniel McCaleb or Calip, residing on the coast some twenty miles below New Orleans.

F. S. J. RONALD _Deputy Sheriff_ for JAMES HARRISON _Sheriff Jefferson Co_.[254]

Feb. 25, 1846.

Under the three causes of sale thus far cited the blame would not be placed upon the master. In the case of the unruly Negro the owner was according to the ethics of that day not at fault. In the settlement of an estate the slaveholder was no longer a factor, for his demise alone had brought the sale. In the case of the runaway the owner was unknown. Mrs. Stowe probably showed the att.i.tude of the average Kentucky master when she pictured Uncle Tom as being sold for the southern market only because of the economic necessities of the owner.

When in such a position the master felt called upon to explain the necessities of the case. He was very careful not to be cast under the suspicion of public opinion as a "slave trader," which, as Shaler has said, was the "last word of opprobrium." Witness a few instances in evidence:

NEGROES FOR SALE

A yellow negro woman of fine const.i.tution, and two children, from the country, and sold for no fault but to raise money. Will not be sold to go down the river. Her husband, a fine man, can be had also. Apply at the store of

JARVIS AND TRABUE--3rd & Main[255]

The editor of the _Lexington Reporter_ was very careful not to get under the ban of his const.i.tuents when he was forced to sell a farm hand and his wife.