I had long been curious about the 1830 US census showing the presence of
slaves living in New York, particularly the 26 enslaved women in Montgomery
County.
I reviewed the 1830 manuscript census reports of Montgomery County (on
microfilm) and found that all the "slaves" were recorded by one census
taker, and for the most part were obvious clerical errors. Typical is a
household headed by a black man with the last name "Freeman." He and his
sons were recorded as not enslaved by tick marks being placed in columns
denoting sex and age in the "free" columns, but his wife's and daughters'
ages were ticked off in the "enslaved" columns. No men or boys were listed
as enslaved in Montgomery County in the 1830 census.
Other women listed as enslaved by this one census taker lived in households
headed by free whites. It is impossible to determine from the internal logic
of the household if these women were being illegally held as slaves, but I
strongly suspect that the census taker was simply consistently putting tick
marks in the wrong column, as he had in households headed by free blacks.
The other six counties that showed slaves in 1830 were Washington (8 women),
Putnam (4 women), Oneida (9 men, 6 women), New York (17 women), Chenango (2
men, 1 woman), and Albany (2 men). The manuscript censuses for those
counties should be reviewed. I would be happy to share my research with
anyone who is willing to write for publication on the end of slavery in New
York State - or simply on how this particular case shows, yet again, why
looking at the original sources and analyzing what is to be found there is
essential.
Edward Knoblauch
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Monje" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 4:13 PM
Subject: More on WNY slavery
> In my previous message, I vaguely stated that slavery had effectively
ended in western New York before it was officially abolished in 1827.
Further investigation shows that there were still slaves in Seneca and
Steuben Counties as late as the 1820 census.
>
> 1810 census, Slaves
> Ontario 212
> Seneca 101
> Steuben 87
>
> 1810 Free persons other than whites, except Indians not taxed
> Ontario 299
> Seneca 44
> Steuben 29
>
> 1820 Slaves
> Ontario 0
> Seneca 84
> Steuben 46
>
> 1820 Free colored persons
> Ontario 727
> Seneca 180
> Steuben 130
>
> 1830 Slaves, 0 west of Oneida County
> (However, still 75 in state overall)
>
> 1830 Free colored persons
> Livingston 134
> Monroe 465
> Ontario 455
> Seneca 177
> Steuben 208
> Tompkins 234
> Wayne 188
> Yates 106
> [Tompkins County was taken from Cayuga and Seneca in 1817. Livingston and
Monroes were taken from Ontario and Genesee in 1821. Wayne, which includes
Sodus Bay, was taken from Seneca and Ontario in 1823. Yates was taken from
Ontario in 1823.]
>
>
> Source: "United States Historical Census Browser"
> http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/
>
> Best,
> Scott Monje
>
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