How many families are there in the United States like yours–the descendants of slave owners?
Edward Ball: Well, at the start of the Civil War there were about 375,000 slave owners on record in the federal census. These were heads of households, each household probably numbering between five and eight people. So individuals in families that owned slaves at the beginning of the Civil War numbered approximately 1 3 /4 million people. The descendants of those families, I’m estimating here, may number as many as ten million Americans today. And most of us know who we are, because if your family was once powerful and had money and controlled workers, then you are not allowed to forget it. Families tell these stories to their children so most descendants of slave owners know who they are, although not a lot of them talk about it openly. SF: Now how many families are there like mine–descendants of slaves–would you think? EB: At the end of the Civil War, approximately four million African-Americans were freed by the emancipation, and today, the census has on record approximately thir
