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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Kentucky's large Black population in the Pre Civil War was by and large either sold South (pre 1860) or moved willingly to Northern cities (post 1865).
The cotton industry developed after KY's plantation areas in Central KY were already established, an area that mainly produced hemp and tobacco. Those crops needed less labor than cotton and so it was more economical to sell slaves to the new cotton producing areas in the newly added states in the MS & TN river valleys. That is why the largest slave market in the USA was in Lexington. Right at Cheapside and Market downtown.
As for the migration to Northern cities... Kentucky sits across the river from the North so there is less distance to be traveled to reach Chicago, Detroit, etc than from Alabama etc.
It seems like in recent years the Black population of Central Kentucky has been growing rapidly due to reverse migration from Northern Cities. Not as fast as Georgia or North Carolina but still above the US average. Lexington's Black population surged 21% from 2000 to 2010.
Black population growth in the Southern States 2000 to 2010 (Border States included)
GA 25%
TX 22%
NC 17% KY 13% Tied with TN for 4th fastest growing Black population in the South
TN 13%
VA 11%
MO 11%
SC 9%
WV 9%
AL 8%
AR 7%
MS 6%
OK 5%
LA 0%
Kentucky's large Black population in the Pre Civil War was by and large either sold South (pre 1860) or moved willingly to Northern cities (post 1865).
The cotton industry developed after KY's plantation areas in Central KY were already established, an area that mainly produced hemp and tobacco. Those crops needed less labor than cotton and so it was more economical to sell slaves to the new cotton producing areas in the newly added states in the MS & TN river valleys. That is why the largest slave market in the USA was in Lexington. Right at Cheapside and Market downtown.
As for the migration to Northern cities... Kentucky sits across the river from the North so there is less distance to be traveled to reach Chicago, Detroit, etc than from Alabama etc.
It seems like in recent years the Black population of Central Kentucky has been growing rapidly due to reverse migration from Northern Cities. Not as fast as Georgia or North Carolina but still above the US average. Lexington's Black population surged 21% from 2000 to 2010.
Black population growth in the Southern States 2000 to 2010 (Border States included)
GA 25%
TX 22%
NC 17% KY 13% Tied with TN for 4th fastest growing Black population in the South
TN 13%
VA 11%
MO 11%
SC 9%
WV 9%
AL 8%
AR 7%
MS 6%
OK 5%
LA 0%
A good many black Kentuckians migrated to Kansas during Reconstruction, where they founded a number of small towns similar to the ring of little all-black communities which historically ringed Lexington: Jonestown on Tates Creek Road, Leestown, etc.
The story of post-war black migration to Kansas is an interesting, yet little-known story with roots in Kentucky's own history.
As a native black Kentuckian who currently lives in Georgia, I have always been fascinated by this topic and I have not found too many answers that satisfied me. I think the answer is multifaceted. Both of my grandfathers were from Kentucky and I assume families that were there in the antebellum period. One was from Boston Kentucky (either Shelby or Nelson County) not sure. The other was from Lebanon in Marion County. These are all in the central Blue Grass Region part of the state which is where the majority of slaves were held. An outlier of the so-called black belt if you will or an extension if you look at maps from the 1800s. On the other hand, my grandmothers were from Etta, Mississippi, and Dover, North Carolina, and were part of the first great migration. My sister’s grandmother was from Clarksville, Tennessee. Some people left the Deep South and landed in places like Louisville as they were leaving the rural area. Many black people in Louisville are a few generations removed from places like Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia and stopped in Louisville versus going further up north into Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, et al. The 2nd migration was mostly bypassed Louisville and Kentucky. While this was happening other black Kentuckians were moving north as well. Now here’s where things get interesting.
1. Kentucky farming changed in the mid-1800s and they didn’t need as many slaves as Tobacco and Hemp were not as profitable. Before this time States like Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were admitted. Cotton was being introduced as a cash crop and the invention of the cotton gin made it extremely profitable. This was also around the time the African importation ban happened. Kentucky families like Jefferson Davis’s family migrated out of Kentucky and force-marched their slaves to Mississippi along with other wealthy planter families. Kentucky suddenly had a surplus of slaves and started selling them downriver to New Orleans. Lincoln witnessed this as a boy seeing slaves march up the Kentucky turnpike to Louisville. Let’s not mention the slave sex farm where they bred slaves. Ironically Kentucky abolitionists successfully passed laws that while not always followed banned the importation of slaves into the Commonwealth. So the number started to go down even before the start of the civil war.
2. After the war, there was a large number of black families who left Kentucky and went to Kansas along with other families out of Tennessee and several other states. They were called the Exodusters. But what people ignore is that they left Kentucky because they could not find or purchase land. Because of racism, whites refused to sell them suitable and arable land at a reasonable price or only wanted to sell them poor quality land like swaps (Newburg Kentucky in the Louisville area is an example of this, it was called Pete’s Wet Woods, and was give/sold to some slaves and was called that till the Germans came during the German migration).
3. Other black people left and went up north for better economic opportunities. But still, the number in the state was mostly stagnant, is didn’t decline, but it didn’t grow either and the percentage dropped significantly.
4. There were some race riots as previously mentioned and many black people left because of this. But this was around the time of the great migration, the numbers and percentages of black people in almost all states dropped precipitously. However, another thing that’s not mentioned…is that the cotton economy of the Deep South continued after the war they still needed a low-priced labor source to pick it. At this point, they started passing laws and codes that almost made it impossible for many black people to leave the South. There were even reports of sheriffs getting on trains and pulling black people off those trains. This was around the time they started sharecropping and other forms of peonage to put black people as close back to the slave system as possible. Kentucky didn’t have a large need for black labor like Georgia, so I believe that’s why there was little resistance to allowing black people to leave the state even to the point riots were pushing black people out, like the one in Corbin in the summer of 1919. This also meant there were few jobs for black people in rural Kentucky. As I stated they couldn’t buy land or gain an economic foothold in many cases so there was little to keep them in the state. My family to my understanding did have and still does have land in central Kentucky but I don’t think that was the story for many others.
I think these are the events that caused Kentucky to have a lower black population today than the rest of the South. However, in the counties that do have a significant number, most are in the same traditional areas that had large numbers of black people. So unlike the North where almost all black people like in the primary city, you will still find some black communities in rural Kentucky like Marion, Shelby, Warren, Fulton,
Christian, Henderson, Hardin, and Logan counties
If anyone has more to contribute I’d be glad to read and learn. Someone mentioned the eastern mountains... Those areas never had more than 2 or 3% black numbers maybe 5% at most and these numbers grew with industrialization when the mining communities needed more workers if they couldn’t get them from Europe they would send scouts into Georgia and Alabama and recruit black people looking for a better life to work in those mines. In Appalachia owning a slave was a sign of wealth, not necessarily done for farming as there was little land to do large-scale planting.
My family was originally from Fulton County and people forget the area is more culturally aligned to Memphis than Kentucky.
The part people forget when discussing Kentucky’s loss of ADOSs is that many Kentuckians were involved in the Back-to-African movement, both pre- and post-Civil War, and interestingly, Kentucky slaves were more likely to have been educated than their more southern peers. Liberian early leadership was full of former Kentucky slaves and several Liberian presidents had been born in Lexington.
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My family was originally from Fulton County and people forget the area is more culturally aligned to Memphis than Kentucky.
The part people forget when discussing Kentucky’s loss of ADOSs is that many Kentuckians were involved in the Back-to-African movement, both pre- and post-Civil War, and interestingly, Kentucky slaves were more likely to have been educated than their more southern peers. Liberian early leadership was full of former Kentucky slaves and several Liberian presidents had been born in Lexington.
Fascinating. Thank you for sharing this.
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