Well, I may be exaggerating a bit but not by much."
rockrr: "We talked about this on another thread. He claimed 30%."
It all depends on who & how you count them.
In 1860, there were about 400,000 total slave-holders, about half in the seven Deep South states which first declared secession, another third in the four Upper South states which followed after Fort Sumter, and 20% in the Border States which remained loyal Unionists.
- In the Deep South, slaveholders represented 7% of the white population -- 180,000 out of 2.5 million.
- In the Upper South, slaveholders represented 5% of the white population -- 135,000 out of 3 million.
- In Border South states, slaveholders represented 3% of the white population -- 80,000 out of 2.7 million.
- So the overall average in 15 slave-states was 5% of individuals holding slaves -- 400,000 out of 8 million Southern whites.
So people who wish to minimize slavery can cite such numbers claiming: "it's no big deal".
But the fact is that individuals did not own slaves in a family vacuum -- they lived in families & households which shared in the benefits of slaveholding.
So, if you estimate the numbers of slaveholding families, now you get a much different picture:
- In Deep South states, on average 37% of white families held slaves, with nearly 50% in South Carolina and Mississippi, 28% in Texas.
- In the Upper South, 25% of white families owned slaves,
- In Border South states, 16% of white families owned slaves, ranging from 23% in Kentucky to 3% in Delaware.
- So the overall average in 15 states in 1860 was 26%, or 400,000 white families out of 1.5 million total.
The overall average was 10 slaves per slaveholding family -- 4 million total slaves -- but that is certainly skewed by large Deep South plantations with hundreds each.
So the median number of slaves per slaveholding family was closer to five.
On the question of black slaveholders, yes there were some: in 1830 about 4,000 blacks, most of mixed race, owned 13,000 slaves. That is fewer than one half of one percent.
Finally, it's often said that Confederate soldiers did not fight for slavery, but in fact, studies show about half came from slaveholding families.
Why so many?
Because in large areas of the South (see map below), slavery was rare to non-existent, and those areas sent their young men to serve the Union Army.
So, Confederate soldiers came from those areas with relatively higher percents of slaveholder families.
Growth of slavery, 1790 to 1860: