Description
"Down Memory's Lane by Dr. Donald D. Parker" - - (excerpted from longer article) - - "“Slavery Days in Parkville and Vicinity” - - Slaves entered Missouri with the white men who came, and they entered Platte County in the same way. When the county was but 3 years old, the census of 1840 gave it 8,913 people of which 858 or about 10% were slaves. From this time to the Civil War the slave population steadily increased and was the densest in in the counties situated like Platte, along the Missouri river. One reason for this in the case of Platte was the necessity of using slaves for the arduous work of the profitable hemp cultivation which prevailed in the county during these years. Great plantations with their white overseers and gangs of driven slaves were almost unknown in Missouri. Very few slaveholders had a hundred slaves. In nearby Jackson County, J. F. Smith is said to have had 165 Negroes, but this large a number was very unusual. Near what is now North Kansas City, John Daugherty in 1858 had 33 Negroes and 2,420 acres of land, and M. Arthur 30 slaves and 1,880 acres. In 1860 in Jackson County the slaveholder owned an average of 4.5 Negroes; in Buchanan in 1856 the average was 3.6. Platte County, situated midway between the two, probably had an average of 4-5. Missouri was a state of small slave holdings. Many families in Platte and other counties held but a single slave who was for a cook, a personal servant, or an all-round worker. When they were held in much larger numbers they were used in hemp raising and in general agricultural work. Sometimes slaves were hired out by the year on the steamboats which plied the Missouri River. However, this was sometimes dangerous on the river from Parkville northward because of the likelihood of escaping into free Kansas.Date(s) of Creation
12/31/1943