Which states had the highest percentage of slaveholders in 1860?
Executive summary
Southern slaveholding in 1860 was highly regional: the states with the largest shares of slaveholders were concentrated in the Deep South, with studies citing states like Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana among the highest; published tabulations of family-level slave ownership show that in many Lower South states roughly one-third to nearly one-half of white families owned slaves (e.g., Mississippi ~49%, South Carolina ~46%, and an average of 36.7% across the Lower South) [1]. Contemporary 1860 Census maps and later visualizations confirm the Deep South — the Mississippi valley, the Carolina and Georgia coasts, and parts of Alabama and Louisiana — as the regions with the highest concentrations of enslaved people and, by implication, the highest prevalence of slaveholders [2] [3] [4].
1. Where the data come from — census maps and later tabulations
The core empirical picture rests on the 1860 U.S. Census and maps derived from it: the Census Office produced a “distribution of the slave population” map in 1861 based on the 1860 returns, and the Census Bureau and Library of Congress host reproductions of that map showing the greatest densities of enslaved people along the Mississippi, in the Lowcountry (South Carolina and Georgia), and in parts of Alabama and Louisiana [3] [5] [6]. Scholars and data projects have re-mapped and re-analyzed those returns to show county- and state-level concentrations and to estimate the share of white families who owned slaves [4].
2. Which states had the highest percentage of slaveholders — published estimates
Secondary tabulations cited in the sources compile family-level estimates of slaveholding by state. One commonly cited breakdown lists Mississippi at about 49% of white families owning slaves and South Carolina about 46%; other Lower South states are high as well — Georgia ~37%, Alabama ~35%, Florida ~34%, Louisiana ~29% — producing an average of roughly 36.7% across the seceding Lower South states in that calculation [1]. Those figures come from historians and magazine compilations that rework census returns into percentages of families owning slaves [1].
3. Why percentages vary — population vs. owners vs. slaves
Different measures produce different impressions. Counting total enslaved persons by state yields which states had the largest enslaved populations (Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina each had very large slave populations, often over 400,000 in 1860), but that does not directly show what share of white households held slaves [7]. Conversely, the percentage of white families owning slaves depends on how “family” is defined and whether one uses household heads, families or some other denominator; historians note most Southern whites did not own slaves and most slaveholders owned few slaves, even where ownership rates were relatively high [8] [4].
4. Local concentration matters — counties, not just states
Maps and county-level analysis matter because slavery was uneven within states: certain river valleys, coastal lowlands, and plantation districts had very high rates of enslaved populations (sometimes over 70% of the local population in counties along the Mississippi and parts of South Carolina and Georgia), while upland and interior counties had far fewer enslaved people [2] [4]. In short, state averages can mask intense county-level concentrations where slaveholding was the social and economic norm [2].
5. Scholarly caveats and differing presentations
Scholars caution about simplistic interpretations. One long-standing point is that while the Deep South contained the highest shares of slaveholders and the largest enslaved populations, overall in the United States slaves remained a minority of the national population and most Southern whites did not own slaves [9]. Different authors and outlets present slightly different percentage rankings depending on source choices and whether they emphasize counts of slaves, counts of slaveholders, or percent of families owning slaves [8] [1].
6. What the available sources do not settle here
Available sources do not give a single definitive ranked table of “percentage of slaveholders by state” produced directly from primary 1860 Census family-level tables in these search results; instead, they provide maps, counts of enslaved people by state, and several secondary compilations and estimates of family-level ownership [3] [7] [1]. For a precise, state-by-state ranked percentage derived directly from the 1860 family returns, consult original census manuscripts or an IPUMS-style reconstruction referenced by the 1860 census documentation [10], which is noted in the sources but not reproduced here [10].
Sources cited: 1860 census maps and documentation (U.S. Census Office and Library of Congress) and scholarly/secondary compilations summarizing percentage estimates of slaveholding by state [3] [6] [5] [2] [1] [7] [4] [8] [10] [9].