Last calendar week Spencer Baucke created a really faithful interactive reproduction of an 1860 Census Slavery Map. The master copy map, on which Spencer's map is based, was made inward 1861 past times the US Census Office "for the produce goodness of ill together with wounded soldiers". The map was based on information from the 1860 together with shows the distribution of slaves inward the southern United States. You tin post away persuasion the master copy map online at the Library of Congress website.
Last twelvemonth The Pudding used the same information used inward the 1860 Slavery Map to explore the legacy of slavery on modern incarceration rates inward the United States. The Pudding's The Shape of Slavery allows you lot to persuasion the 1860 distribution of slaves inward the Southern States amongst acquaint twenty-four hr stream incarceration rates inward each state.
America likes to pose people behind bars. The NAACP reports that 21% of the entire world's prison theatre population is living inward American jails. This propensity to lock upward its citizens affects African Americans to a greater extent than than well-nigh other Americans. The NAACP says that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly v times the charge per unit of measurement of white Americans.
There is a geographical element at play inward these incarceration rates. The Prison Policy Initiative states that "the South has consistently had a higher charge per unit of measurement of incarceration than the other regions of the United States". The Pudding decided to explore if in that place was whatsoever connector betwixt the high charge per unit of measurement of incarceration inward Southern states together with the legacy of slavery. By mapping 150 years of census together with incarceration information they wanted to come across if historic incarceration rates differ betwixt the old slave states together with the non-slave states of the North.
They do. The Pudding concludes that "we nonetheless come across the shadow of the undeniable, institutionalized, strategic racism of the 100 years afterwards the Civil War".
