1820 US Census: Population, States, Cities, Slave Demographics | Historical Statistics

[@automaticmattywhack1470]

We learn so many interesting things from those few questions on a census form.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

It is incredible how much we learn from a single row of information on a spreadsheet.

[@josww2]

Love these census videos!

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you for watching!

[@jaredkrol3739]

Well researched and well narrated. Very nice video!

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you for watching!

[@coyote4237]

Thank you for the video.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I appreciate you watching it!

[@SB-qm5wg]

NY had 1.4m but only 125k in NYC. I would of never guessed that. Upstate NY is mostly bare except the Erie Canal corridor cites (that were around swamp and wet lands) and it hadn't been created yet. West of Onieda Lake was Iroquois land till 1780 till it was sold for war-debt. I guess it was the Hudson Valley that had most of the people.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Albany had 12,500, so it was just behind Salem as one of the biggest cities in the country. The rivers, Fingers Lakes region, and canals were just lined with settlements of 1000 to 9000 people, and there were so many towns that it all added up to a large number. For instance, Ontario County had 88,000 people, once all the towns were added up.

[@jamesstark8316]

​@@JeffreytheLibrarian also, Brooklyn was a separate city at the time. Didn't consolidate until 1898.

[@sebastienhardinger4149]

Great stuff as always. Was what is today Wisconsin unorganized or part of michigan? native americans were not included in the census, correct?

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Wisconsin was too far out there I believe at this time to be organized as a territory. It was slated for a territory by the Northwest Ordinance in the 1780s, but in 1820 it's Native American and (I imagine) some Frenchmen.

[@Civilwarman40]

great video,great job

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you!

[@rooster7996]

So interesting, thanks!

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you for watching!

[@paulmicks7097]

Thank you for your series of American history. Was there any accounting of the Indian populations , displacement, relocation locations, etc ?

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Great question. In 1820, Native Americans on the frontier were "the other." The US government was on an active war front with natives. The census would not include these populations, and it is quite hard to know what the populations were or how many would have been displaced or relocated.

[@EngRMP]

Thanks!

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you, friend! I great appreciate your contribution!

[@coreycourchene7379]

Another census video?! LFFGGGG 💪

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I appreciate the enthusiasm.

[@EngRMP]

Really fascinating. Two questions for folks: 1) do we know what percentage of the "western" states still had french speaking people? And, unrelated, are there any books that describe the life of free slaves in this time period... I can't even begin to imagine how they interacted with the rest of society... especially in the southern states.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Question 1: I wonder this myself. How many Frenchmen are left from the old days? French population in North America was always low (that's a major reason they allied well with the natives, because the natives didn't see them as a threat). I do know that Sacagawea out West was married to a Frenchman in the early 1800s, so they are definitely still there. My hunch is the French population still in the western states was likely similar to a single native nation in that state. There are enough in Wisconsin that many place names there are still French. Question 2: The free African American experience in the 18th century is, I believe, largely not well understood now. I imagine in the north it is a different experience than in the south. I am not sure how a freeman in South Carolina is able to prove his or her status in 1820. However, I am interested myself in this subject, and I will try to find an example for a future video. I imagine it was a fascinating life to be a freeman in Charleston, South Carolina in 1820.

[@SvenAnarki]

Great vid! No idea Maine was that populated.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Thank you! Maine was Massachusetts through the colonial period, so it had some mileage on it to gain population.

[@snapmalloy5556]

Population increased 33% since 1810 and Ohio really jumped. It all tracks for my family. Grandfather came from England in 1812 and moved directly to Ohio. Shocking that states like South Carolina and Georgia were half slave.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

The growth figures are amazing for this period.

[@snapmalloy5556]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian Incredible

[@teamground0229]

Did not know my homestate of Illinois ever had slaves. Who says demographics is boring?

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

It's surprising what a few numbers on the census reveals.

[@SergeantAradir]

Loving your videos, great content! The only thing I would ask you to reflect on is how you word your videos. If you say stuff like "The defeat of the Cree resulted in two more states", you *actually* mean: "After the defeat of the Cree the inhabitants could be displaced and european settlers started colonizing the area in larger numbers". So please be more concrete, even if it might take away from your very "historybook"-style of presenting (which i like). If you use "neutral" words it can make it easier to gloss over not only pretty horrific, but also immensly important part of history.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

You make a good point. Word choice, especially for this issue, is very hard.

[@berrymcockiner3906]

Michigan content 💪🏻

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I lived in Canton for a few years as a kid. Michigan is nice. If you're ever in Plymouth, get a blueberry muffin at the farmer's market. And there's a cool old movie theater there.

[@berrymcockiner3906]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian sounds nice, I’m from da UP eh!

[@leonardyoung6821]

Louisiana had a very large Creole population in 1820. Many of these people had African ancestry but could either pass for white or had so little African blood that they were treated almost as well as their pure white Creole cousins. Regardless of color, all Creoles shared the same religion, language, and culture for the most part. Creoles of color dominated the Treme area of New Orleans and made up the bulk of the tradespeople for the city. Some even inherited plantations and slaves. The French Creoles had a more nuanced attitude about race and slavery than the Anglos. They were more likely to see it as a necessary evil rather than as an entitlement of racial superiority. (Possibly because there were so many successful and educated people of color in the society.) Over time, Louisiana became more and more Anglicized, and LA became more like the rest of the Deep South when it came to notions of white supremacy. I wonder if many of these free Creoles of Color responded to the census as white? My gut tells me that probably most of them did.

[@expatexpat6531]

QNs 1. Could any of the Territories or any other entities that were not incorporated into the United States have chosen to become independent countries? I seem to remember that Texas went that way temporarily. 2 Were there any non-African-American slaves on US soil at that time? In theory, a European could have been captured by the Barbary pirates and then been sold into slavery, eventually finding him-/herself in the US.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

The new territories at this time were either part of the Northwest Ordinance, the British cessation to the US after the Revolution, or the Louisiana Purchase. In all Western legal terms, the USA had this territory by the conventions of interstate politics. An attempt to formulate an independent territory would be considered a violation of these treaties. The Native Americans, of course, were not party to these arrangements and fought them.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I realized I didn't answer your second question. The Census assumes that slaves were of African descent, as that demographic is separated into slave and free. There are no other groups listed as slaves.

[@expatexpat6531]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian Thank you for your replies.

[@kmichaelp4508]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian, but by all accounts, there were plenty of Irish slaves at that time.

[@elijahFree2000]

​@kmichaelp4508 Not in the US. Indentured servitude yes. But in the USA, slavery was only for people of African descent.

[@vincent412l7]

I'm assuming that these umbers do not include "Indians not taxed"?

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Correct. In the 19th century, the US is on a warfooting with Native Americans on the frontier. They were not considered residents of the country.

[@tomcat3316]

Another Census Video! I wonder If the series is going all the way to 1950

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I'm going to just keep on going. I imagine I will go back to previous Census and get more detailed too.

[@tomcat3316]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian looking forward to it!

[@herstoryswitness]

This is a fascinating snapshot. Americans forget there were slaveholders in the North

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

The more complicated the picture gets, the more interesting it gets.

[@PaulTrippy-bj8ho]

think about that, Spain held Florida for 250+ years before Florida became a State of the US, and this is in the early 1800s.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Florida's history remains mostly part of the Spanish empire than the United States. It's pretty neat.

[@Squatch_Rider66]

Great presentation. Were slaves back in the day exclusively African American and could a free African American own slaves?

[@NathanDudani]

African Americans were yet to exist for 51 further years-July of 1871-, so neither.

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

I have read about Native American slaves, but I'm not sure if that was still in practice at this time. I know of Native Americans owning slaves, but I do not know of any African Americans being slave owners. The assumption in the Census is that a slave was of African descent. I have to read more about the freeman situation in the south, and I imagine it was different in Maryland than in South Carolina.

[@NathanDudani]

​​@@JeffreytheLibrarian Is U.S. federal law really so controversial that you felt the need to censor it?

[@loudidier3891]

@@JeffreytheLibrarian Antoine Decuir, born in 1765, in Pointe Coupee Louisiana, is an example of a free black man who owned numerous black slaves. His father was a rich white man who never married, since it was illegal to marry the free black woman he loved. More famous black slave owners are the Metoyer family of the Melrose Plantation near Natchitoches.

[@herstoryswitness]

The south also forgets there were free Black people living in the US in the 1600s.

[@NathanDudani]

Intermittently free, maybe, but denizens, at best

[@alexstephens5183]

Was this comment supposed to make us despise the sin of slavery any less for you saying this???

[@herstoryswitness]

@@alexstephens5183 No, definitely not. There is not one story fits all for "Black" people living in the US. I think this is why some Americans have a problem with President Obama: His father's people were never slaves and he just doesn't fit with the comfortable narrative that they tell themselves. I received some interesting information on records relating to manumission yesterday. A very large number of Americans would be shocked to learn how much intermingling there actually was, through records or DNA. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my statement.

[@salvatoreregalbuto5444]

Pennsylvania is goated

[@JeffreytheLibrarian]

Go Pens!