“President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared ‘that all persons held as slaves’ within the rebellious states ‘are, and henceforward shall be free.’

“Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

“Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of Black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.”

From The American Presidency Project, Proclamation 10598—Juneteenth Day of Observance, 2023

“On June 19, 1865—months after the Civil War ended and more than 2 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people—Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to free 250,000 people still held in bondage. The arrival of Major General Gordon Granger and his troops signaled that the Federal Government would not relent until the last enslaved people in America were free.”

Key Stats

Source: Commercial lithographer Henry S. Graham printed this choropleth map showing the distribution of the slave population in September 1861. The map shows in graphic terms the density of the slave population in the Southern states, based on figures from the 1860 census. Although the development of this map was a collaborative government effort, cartographers working for Edwin Hergesheimer, U.S. Coast Survey Drafting Division, created it.

Mapping Slavery in the Nineteenth Century

Note: Click on the image above for higher resolution.

SOURCE: Bureau of the Census. For urban-rural figures for 1790-1940, sex and race figures for 1850-1940, and nativity figures for 1900-1940, see, Sixteenth Census Reports, Population, vol. II, part 1, pp. 18 and 19; for race figures for 1790-1840, sex figures for 1820-1840, and nativity figures for 1850-1890, see Fifteenth, Census Reports, Population, vol. II, p. 97; for slave figures for 1790-1860, see Ninth Census Reports, Population, p. 7. (See page 16, B 13-23.)

Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945, A Supplement of the Statistical Abstract of the United States (page 25)

Note: The first 16 decennial censuses presented above are stored at the National Archives. The first eight counted slaves, but that classification ended after the Civil War (1861-1865).

More Stats

From Census.gov / Topics / Population / Race:

America Counts: New Population Counts for 62 Detailed Black or African American Groups (10/17/23)

Race Data (Tables and Tools)

Race News

From Census.gov > History:

Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1, note Chapter A, Population, Series A 119-134 source text on page 4 and table on pages 15-18

Report: 200 Years of U.S. Census Taking: Population and Housing Questions, 1790-1990, note Historical Background, page 1, paragraph 3:

“The Civil War of 1861-65 ended slavery (abolished legally through the 13th Amendment in 1865), and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, ended Article I's three-fifths rule. Thus, the original census requirements were modified.”

The History and Growth of the United States prepared for the Senate Committee on the Census (1900)

Reference > Data@Museums (many honor Black or African Americans)

Reference > Maps > Distribution of Slaves in 1860

Through the Decades > Census instructions

Through the Decades > Index of Questions

Through the Decades > Questionnaires

Note: For detailed information about each census, visit Decennial Census by Decade and select any year ending in zero. There are 25 decennial censuses from 2030 back to 1790.

From the Census.gov > History > Home Page Archives: