Is he the owner or a slave?

Question

I have never worked with slave schedules. Is this man the owner of the others on the page or just the oldest slave?

Wilson R Maupin Male 21

UNKNOWN Female 17

UNKNOWN Female 16

UNKNOWN Male 15

UNKNOWN Male 7

UNKNOWN Male 6

UNKNOWN Male 6

UNKNOWN Female 1

UNKNOWN Female 0

"United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 ", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HR72-1S6Z : 15 February 2020), Wilson R Maupin in entry for MM9.1.1/MVZQ-LF3:, 1850.

Answer 1

Wilson Maupin is the enslaver, the unnamed people are those enslaved.  You might look for a will from one of Wilson’s parents, he seems young to have so many enslaved people so he might have received them in a will.  Wills usually give names to the enslaved, and often give some famiily relationships.

Answer 2

The only names on slave schedules are those of slave owners. The information on the same line as the name of the slave owner is for their first enumerated slave. Here is my 3rd great-grandfather Samuel Burch on the 1850 slave schedule; you'll see that the info next to his name is for a 35 year old female.

Answer 3

The slave schedule records the name of the owner, which is Wilson Maupin, and then describes each of the slaves by age and sex. The names of the enslaved are not recorded.

Comments

Wow, we all answered at the same time.