Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 Read Online Free PDF Page A

other southern urban centers where women typically were in the majority (tables 4 and 5). In Baltimore, for example, slave women outnumbered men in 1840 by a ratio of 100 to 57. This pattern also was evident in Charleston, Louisville, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., which suggests a high demand for female domestic servants in those cities. Although Richmond also had a significant demand for such servants, the growing need for industrial slaves during the early nineteenth century assured a more balanced sex ratio.
Table 3. Urban slave populations in Virginia, 18001840
Richmond
Norfolk
Petersburg
1800
2,293
2,724
1,487
1820
4,387
3,261
2,428
1840
7,509
3,709
3,637
Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, Population, 18001840.

Table 4. Sex distribution of slave population, 182040
Male
Female
Ratio
1820
2,171
2,150
101:100
1830
3,134
2,844
110:100
1840
3,816
3,347
114:100
Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, Population, 182040.

 

Page 20
Table 5. Age distribution of slaves, 182040
1820

Under
14
14-26
26-45
45+
Male

724
653
604
190
Female

726
628
571
221
1830

Under
10
10-24
24-36
36-55
55+
Male

713
1,092
33
496
54
Female

725
941
634
544
213
1840
Male

685
1,320
1,190
621
137
Female

724
1,215
685
206
3
Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, Poupulation, 182040.
Note: Age distribution for 1800 and 1810 is not available.

Industrial demand for male slaves is further reflected in the age distribution of Richmond's bondmen. Throughout the period the majority of black males held in bondage were between fourteen and forty-five, the prime years for industrial and factory workers. This indicates that city owners did not send able-bodied bondmen to plantations in the Deep South for work but kept them in the city (see table 5).
Slave labor demands during the early nineteenth century also affected slaveholdings by maintaining a sizable minority of owners with four or more slaves a pattern that originated in the post-Revolutionary War era. Although the majority of Richmond owners held three or fewer slave workers (and continued to do so throughout the antebellum era), nearly one-third of the city's slaveholders possessed a greater number of workers, indicating healthy business demands for bondmen. As table 6 demonstrates, 244 households (69%) in 1800 owned between one and three slaves, and 111 (31%) households held between four and thirty-three slaves. These percentages remained the same over the next forty years. By 1840, 69 percent (785) of all households with slaves held three or fewer slaves, and roughly 31 percent (298) held four or more slaves.

 

Page 21
Table 6. Slaveholding patterns, 1800 and 1840
1800 and (1840)
Slaves per household

No. of households
%

Total no.
of slaves
%
1

121 (286)
34 (29)

121 (386)
10 (9)
2

80 (238)
23 (24)

160 (476)
13 (11)
3

43 (161)
12 (16)

129 (483)
11 (11)
4+

111 (298)
31 (30)

789 (2,892)
66 (69)
Total

355 (983)
1. (1.)

1,199 (4,237)
1. (1.)
Source: Richmond, Personal Property Tax Lists, 1800 and 1840.
Note: Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

Although these are but a few of the many statistics available for Richmond, they clearly show a region that had become markedly different from other places in Virginia.
During the first few decades of the nineteenth century, Richmond grew up. With new residences and businesses, cobblestone thoroughfares, a major banking facility, and the State Capitol, it began to resemble a city of importance. The most significant development, however, was the rise of industries, which greatly shaped both the landscape and the community to fit the needs of a manufacturing center. By 1840 tobacco manufactories and flour mills crowded the banks of the James River, and hundreds of workers, particularly male slave laborers, filled its stemming, pressing, and grinding rooms. These facts alone set Richmond apart from any other city south of the Mason-Dixon Line and any industrial center farther north. Of greater importance than how Richmond fared in comparison to