Map of Virginia: showing the distribution of its slave population from the census of 1860

Caption

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

Catalog notes

County-level census figures become a stark geographic pattern on this map of enslaved people in Virginia. Its tables and shading make the uneven distribution of slavery visible, while the western region is identified as Kanawha. It demonstrates the persuasive power of statistical cartography during the Civil War. The historical title and classifications are preserved as evidence of the period; the quantities represent people held in slavery, whose lives cannot be reduced to the map’s statistics.

Original catalog record, source and attribution