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[Heyworth #108] The simplest way to show that those census figures are academically accepted is to show how many academics cite them. There's the link to the table I gave above showing the results of the 1860 census, offered by Prof. Benson of Furman University in South Carolina. http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/shfam60.htm

[Heyworth #108] Here's Prof. Hansen at Virginia Western Community College linking to them: http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html

This position is ludicrous, as I shall demonstrate below. Citing something does not connote agreement or acceptance of it. Moreover, looking at what the citing source says may be relevant as more than adequately demonstrated below. Should you choose to accept the Virginia Westerm Community College table as authoritative, I am proud of you. You have seen the light. (Or you have not bothered to look at your source material.)

http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census.html

This link goes to a page with the following title and lists ten (10) hyperlinked tables.

Directly relevant to our discussion is Table 4:

TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)

HIS 121/269 Research Document
U.S. Census Data on Slavery in America
TABLE 1. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1790 (US)
TABLE 2. SLAVE POPULATION BY STATE IN 1850 (US)
TABLE 3. SLAVES AND IMMIGRANTS IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 4. SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 5. SLAVE CONCENTRATION IN 1860 (SOUTH)
TABLE 6. MANUFACTURING IN 1860 (US)
TABLE 7. SECESSION AND SLAVERY IN 1861 (SOUTH)
TABLE 8. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1870 (SOUTH)
TABLE 9. COLORED PERSONS IN 1870 (US)
TABLE 10. COLORED PERSONS 1860-1880 (US)

[nc - boldface added]

http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Census1860T4.html

Going to the link to TABLE 4, we get the following page, shown below in full by JPEG image.

HIS 121/269 Research Document
Census Table 4. Slaves and Slaveholders in 1860

The following notation appears:

This table reveals that despite the large number of slaveholders in some states, even in major
slave states like Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia, they were less than 10% of the free population.

CENSUS TABLE 4 AT THE LINKED PAGE

I guess the question still remains: how does one define "slave-holder" in the context of the figures you've presented? Are "free persons" counted as the same population as "slave-holders," or is there some difference in definition between them?

Is a "slave-holder" defined as the single person in whose name all property was listed? And, if so, are we asked to accept that the owner's family is not included among the class of "slave-holders?"

Or are we defining "slave-holders" as all members of a family that owned slaves?

You'll agree that it's an important distinction, as the relative percentages are tightly bound to the definitions used to produce the figures you cited.

I suspect that the "slave-holder" figures refer to those who held actual title to the slaves. This does not alter the fact, however, that in some sense the slave-holders' families were in some sense also slave-owners, who gained from the property held by the head of their family.

In this latter case, if we assume an average family size of four (a number I'm pulling out of thin air), then Virginia's 52,128 slave-holders expands to roughly 200,000 slave-owners, which places the percentage closer to 20% of the total population.

Only if we define "slave-holder" as being all members of a slave-owning family, do the percentages cited make sense.

So ... how are we to define slave-holder? Does Prof. Hansen bother to define his figures?