NetNewEntertainmentRadio,sm The Wrath of Cochran
Mark Cochran, a historical landscape preservationist, pushes back against my calm that “1.4% of FREE AMERICANS owned slaves!”
According to Cochran, “1.4% is inaccurate because it presents a rate of slave ownership that grossly understates the actual rate of ownership.”
What rate? Cochran calculates 31% based on the number of FAMILIES, not FREE AMERICANS, and SLAVEHOLDER data taken from the 1860 Census from the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Further, Cochran explains, “I’m looking at the percentage of families that owned slaves in the ‘predominantly’ slaveholding States to more accurately present the prevalence of slave ownership with those States. In my opinion, including States that had banned slavery (even though there were a small number of slaves still in some States due to gradual manumission) or counting every single citizen in those numbers presents a more skewed result.”
On the other side of the argument, how 1.4%, calculated by using FREE AMERICANS and SLAVEHOLDER data from the Census 1860, is no less inaccurate, than Cochran’s 31% claim, using Family and slaveholder data from the SAME DATA SOURCE.
Cochran decides to completely ignore the data from the States of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, the federal district of Columbia and seven territories, which in doing so, grossly overstates the actual rate of slave ownership, nationwide.
1.4% represents just one picture of slave ownership, among many, the 1860 Census creates.
SOURCES:
“1.4% of What” podcast
https://netnewsnetwork.net/1-4-of-what/
John Needham’s Civil War group on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/161316348012472
NOTE: If you attempt to join, your profile will be reviewed and investigated.
USATODAY:
NOTE: COCHRAN’S quotes are taken directly from his posts in my group.