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The legitimate institution of slavery, constituting the enslavement primarily of Africans, was common in the United States from its founding in 1776 until 1865.
According to the 1860 census, the population of the U.S. was 31,429,891 among them 3,952, 838 were slaves.
According to J. David Hacker, approximately total 10 million slaves lived in the United States during the entire period of slavery.
Most enslaved Africans brought to the United States between 1720 and 1780 because the rapid development of the cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin boosted the requirement for slave labor in the Southern States.
Below are maps of the slave population of the United States, based on the 1860 and 1861 censuses.
Enslaved Persons Map of the U.S. (1860)
Map showing the Slave Population of Southern States (1861)
