Very interesting maps and, once again, it evokes a story from me because of my years as a genealogy hobbiest.  The 1860 Cotton Production map notes that the principle cotton-growing states shifted westward by 1860.  That's because those lands were previously occupied by the Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes and they were "relocated" by virture of the Treaty of Jumping Rabbit Creek, signed around 1830.  So, in 30 years time farming exploded in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In 1860 my ancestors were cotton farmers in southeastern Alabama (Pike County) and southwestern Tennessee/northern Mississippi (near Memphis). They all eventually ended up in north Texas or Southern Oklahoma when Oklahoma was still called Indian Territory.

As far as I have found, only one of my ancestral lines had any slave owners. That one line was the Adair's of Loudon County, South Carolina, but it is also from this line that I got my best education about native Americans.  In the 1750s, one of my ancestor, a man names James Adair, wrote a book titled, "The History of the American Indian".  James Adair, himself, was not a slave owner but his brother, from whom I am descended, owned slaves and I discovered that by reading his will. His children owned slave until the Civil War and those were the slaves given to them by their father.

It's somewhat surreal for me to imagine that anyone in my family would have owned a human being. But there it is, and this map actually completes my knowledge of the shape of slavery in the times and lives of my own family. I wonder what they would think if they knew both I and my spouse have descendents of slaves in our immediate family.

Thanks for posting this.

Pretty wild correlation. It suggests to me we might not be as mobile a culture as we think we are. Thanks for the interesting view of yesterday and today!

Following Ray,

I have ( runaway slave) bounty hunters in my Family's history ... I think on that from time to time.

Thanks for the maps, very interesting indeed ....

--virgil

Ray

I managed to trace one of my ancestrial lines back to the Dawkins of Louisianna.  They were also slave owners.    They bought large tracks of land and slaves to work it in the 10 years before the civil war.  They were a bad bunch from the get go.  (Anyone who'd own another human being is souless, in my opinion).  

In the 1870's the son of the slave owner shot a man in the back of the head as he slept against a tree.  This killing was in retaliation for the murder of the shooter's brother by the victim.  Dawkins escaped to Missouri with the victim's surviving brothers in hot pursuit.   He was never caught and eventually changed his name.  He married (or not) my gg grandmother and became a blacksmith.  I have a picture of him and he looks pretty satisfied with himself.

It was really hard to trace this part of the family line because of the name change.   One thing's for sure, he never was any good, and his son (my great grandpa) was just as bad.   He spent time in McAlester prison for adultery.  His wife turned him, and the other women, in.  He was a mean S.O.B.

BTW  This line has produced several men who became judges in Louisianna.  Ironic, huh?

I do have other, salt of the earth,  ancestors.  They, hopefully, balance out the bad blood I received from the Dawkins.