Category: 
December 3, 2009I’m doing a presentation on –Uncle Tom’s Cabin– which was written in 1852. I want to discuss how Harriet Beacher Stow directed her narrative towards Christians, who were a great majority in the population. I really would like to show a statistic about the Christian population but can’t find any. Does anyone know of a website that would give this information? A population map showing religion durng slavery would be superb!
Thanks!
Population in America during slavery.
Interesting question.
The U.S. census did not ask about religious affiliation, so there may not be any really accurate numbers on the religious practices at that time. I have included a link below to the 1850 Census reports. Page 4 of this PDF file shows the total <<capacity>> of the known churches within different denominations. But, as the document itself points out, the capacity of all the churches is not necessarily related to the number of practitioners of any particular religion.
If you are using "christian" in a generic sense of not-Native American, not-Jewish, not-Muslim, not-agnostic, not-Quaker or not-atheist and so on, then, I suppose you may be correct in saying the majority of the US population was "christian." Personally, without facts to back it up, I would hesitate to say a "large majority" were Christian. If you can’t find substantiation for that, I wouldn’t put it that way – but that’s just me.
Whether Christians were a large majority or not, some people in some of those denominations certainly shared Stow’s feelings about slavery, and that made them a natural target audience.
It may have been more important that she was trying to rouse those who were on the fence about the propriety of slavery to join with her on her side of the issue. All of those who already agreed with her did not need to be convinced of anything, and it is unlikely that she would change the minds of those who were adamantly on the other side. She had to try to convince those who were uncertain and undecided.
Good luck with your presentation. The census.gov site has loads of data, and somewhere in that you might find more useful information.
No related posts.
Horaayy..there are 2 comment(s) for me so far ;)
I heard it was actually less than it was in the mid-twentieth century (where Christian immigration from Central/East Europe and Latin America jumped up)
But the majoirty probably was. I doubt atheists, deists, Jews made up more than 20% of the population combined. But there would have been varying levels of piety, and varying denominations would have made a complex religious make-up
References :
Interesting question.
The U.S. census did not ask about religious affiliation, so there may not be any really accurate numbers on the religious practices at that time. I have included a link below to the 1850 Census reports. Page 4 of this PDF file shows the total <<capacity>> of the known churches within different denominations. But, as the document itself points out, the capacity of all the churches is not necessarily related to the number of practitioners of any particular religion.
If you are using "christian" in a generic sense of not-Native American, not-Jewish, not-Muslim, not-agnostic, not-Quaker or not-atheist and so on, then, I suppose you may be correct in saying the majority of the US population was "christian." Personally, without facts to back it up, I would hesitate to say a "large majority" were Christian. If you can’t find substantiation for that, I wouldn’t put it that way – but that’s just me.
Whether Christians were a large majority or not, some people in some of those denominations certainly shared Stow’s feelings about slavery, and that made them a natural target audience.
It may have been more important that she was trying to rouse those who were on the fence about the propriety of slavery to join with her on her side of the issue. All of those who already agreed with her did not need to be convinced of anything, and it is unlikely that she would change the minds of those who were adamantly on the other side. She had to try to convince those who were uncertain and undecided.
Good luck with your presentation. The census.gov site has loads of data, and somewhere in that you might find more useful information.
References :
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1850c-05.pdf
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1850-1930.html