Historical Map, 1861 Map Showing The Distribution of The Slave Population of The Southern States of The United States, Vintage Wall Art

Based on 1860 census data, this visually striking map plots the percentage of slaves by county for the southern states. Rather than showing a uniform istribution throughout the entire region, it is readily apparent that there were several major slave concentrations, particularly where commercial plantation agriculture was most profitable -- tobacco in coastal and piedmont Virginia and Maryland; sugar in Louisiana along the lower Mississippi River; and cotton extending in a broad swath from coastal South Carolina, through the piedmont regions of Georgia, Alabama, and the Mississippi River Valley to coastal Texas. Attesting to this map"s importance during the Civil War, it was intentionally depicted in Francis Bicknell Carpenter"s oil painting, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, which hangs in the U.S. Capitol Senate wing. The artist"s memoir records Abraham Lincoln"s fascination with the map, not just for its symbolic power and visual appeal, but because it allowed him to trace military movements, and to relate those actions to his emancipation policies. This map was also one the first statistical or thematic maps published in the United States. Although not explicitly acknowledged on the map, it was produced by the U.S. Coast Survey. Specifically, it was drawn by Edwin Hergesheimer, a recent German immigrant who was employed as the Survey"s Chief Draftsman. In addition, a statement boldly positioned at the map"s top center, stating that it was sold for the benefit of the U.S. Army"s sick and wounded soldiers, suggests that it reflected the interests of Alexander Dallas Bache, the Survey"s Superintendent. Bache was an ardent abolitionist and had just become vice president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission.