At the peak of slavery in the US, what percentage of white people owned slaves?

by not_american_ffs

I tried to google this question, but for some reason I could only find numerous articles giving the percentages of "Southerners" that owned slaves. I would like to know the percentage of the US as a whole.

jschooltiger

Here's an older thread that should answer your question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4al3zm/approximately_how_many_americans_owned_at_least/

The reason why you're only finding data on "Southerners" is that slavery was only legal in the southern states. The total percentage of heads of households who were enslavers in the South ranged from a low of 3 percent in Delaware to a high of 49 percent in Mississippi.

Edit: Here are some more threads on the topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4vmrd0/at_the_peak_of_slavery_in_the_continental_united/d5zqps9/

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/46ixsh/how_financially_privileged_was_slave_ownership_in/

both. featuring u/sowser