In early and mid-2025, a claim that "only 1.6% of US citizens owned slaves in 1860" resurfaced and circulated widely online, including on X, Reddit and Facebook.

Editor's note: Please see our updated and expanded coverage of this topic published in June 2025. On April 2, 2024, the claim that "only 1.6% of US citizens owned slaves in 1860" went viral on X ...

Exploring an ancestry website, I discovered an 1860 Slave Schedule showing that my great-great-grandfather, William Henry Robertson of Mason County, Kentucky, owned 13 human beings.

Counties with more slaves in 1860 have higher gun ownership rates today, study finds A new study finds a peculiar correlation between rate of enslavement in the past and firearm ownership now ...

Affiant further declares that he was informed from Mr. ST. MARE SARPY, who has been overseeing on the said WALKERS plantation, that he has seen the said WALKER whip in a cruel manner his slaves ...

If slaves are property, in the same sense and to the same extent as "lands, horses, mules and hogs," as Mr. WINFALL, in another part of his speech, declared that they are -- if they are to be thus ...

In 1860, on a slave schedule in Forsyth, I found my ancestor listed on line 34 as A.J. Julian. He was 17-years-old at the time. There were four entries for his “Number of Slaves” column ...

In the November 6, 1860 general election, a country lawyer who had until fairly recently been a relatively little-known figure won a four-way national presidential race running on an anti-Slavery ...

It felt like a kick in the stomach. Exploring an ancestry website, I discovered an 1860 Slave Schedule showing that my great-great-grandfather, William Henry Robertson of Mason County, Kentucky ...

In early and mid-2025, a claim that "only 1.6% of US citizens owned slaves in 1860" resurfaced and circulated widely online, including on X, Reddit and Facebook. As we previously reported, this ...