Choropleth Map Depicting Slaves in the Southern U.S. (1860) |
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| Date: | 1860 |
| Author: | A von Steinwehr |
| Dwnld: | Full Size (8.50mb) |
| Source: | Library of Congress |
| Print Availability: | |
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| See our Prints Page for more details | |
In honor of Juneteenth – and as my (very small) part of an effort to ensure that we in the U.S. never forget our complicity in what was an abominable and evil institution – I present this choropleth map of slaves in the United States in 1860.
Adolph von Steinwehr was a German military officer who emigrated to the U.S., and eventually accepted a commission as a Union General.
He distinguished himself as a geographer and cartographer. Not sure if this map of slave density in the South was an early advertisement of a strong feeling against the institution, but given the little that I know about the backstory, it seems plausible.
Pretty early use of choropleth visualization, all-told... and a good one (data normalized by population, in this case) that many makers of modern-day choropleth maps would do well to emulate.
