I am looking for information on Oklahoma in the 1860 Census, specifically the number or proportion of people who were enslaved. When I download the 1860 data at the state or county level from NHGIS, I do not see a line for Oklahoma/Indian Territory, but the National Archives page on the 1860 Census (1860 Census Records | National Archives) makes it appear as though people who were not Native American were enumerated as part of Arkansas, in a section on “Indian Lands” (Wikipedia also reports a full 1860 population count for Oklahoma, though without citation History of Oklahoma - Wikipedia). Is this data available from NHGIS or other parts of IPUMS?
This question is a bit outside the expertise of IPUMS User Support; I may have more information to share from our historical data team (who are out of the office this week) in the next week or so.
Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Prior to statehood, Oklahoma Territory existed from 1890-1907. The area that is now Oklahoma was considered Indian Territory from 1834-1907. This means that in the 1860 census, Oklahoma as a state did not exist.
Neither the printed census volumes for Arkansas nor for the U.S. include Oklahoma (since it did not exist as a state) or any mention of Indian Territory. This is why IPUMS NHGIS does not provide summary data for the area; the summary data don’t seem to exist. However, we do offer microdata from the 1860 census that identify Oklahoma (see STATEFIP). You could create state or county level estimates for Oklahoma yourself using the microdata.
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In summary, there are a few resources you should find useful to estimate the enslaved population in what is now Oklahoma in the 1860 census.
- The preliminary report from the 1860 census contains statistics on slaves (and others by race: white and free colored) in Indian Territory west of Arkansas, broken down by sex and county (see table 3 on page 136). There are some quality limitations to this report; see more information below.
- IPUMS provides microdata from the population schedules from 1860 for Indian Territory (see STATEFIP code 40 “Oklahoma”)
- IPUMS provides microdata from the slave schedules from 1860 for Indian Territory (again, this will be STATEFIP code 40)
In 1860, the U.S. Constitution required that marshalls exclude “Indians not taxed” from their enumerations. On the original enumeration forms, enumerators typically indicated whether it was a part of one of the Indian Nations on the forms (which allows IPUMS to identify them as part of Indian Territory and not Arkansas). Since Indian Territory was entirely located within the modern day boundaries of Oklahoma, IPUMS opted to give it the Oklahoma state code instead of Arkansas in the 1860 microdata.
Our historical data staff hypothesize that the enumeration likely was associated with Arkansas because most of the people were enumerated in areas closer to Arkansas than other states. The territory would have been primarily surrounded by Kansas to the North, Texas to the South, and Arkansas to the east. The far west would have been bordered by New Mexico and Colorado territories. In the preliminary census report, the table was organized as “Indian Lands to the West of Arkansas,” further supporting this point.
The preliminary report from the 1860 census provides some population estimates for slaves, whites, and free coloreds in Indian Territory by sex and county. While some of these estimates look accurate when compared to the microdata, the quality of these estimates is questionable. Our historical data staff were able to find at least one example of clear contradictions between the preliminary report and the original census forms. Also, while this preliminary report does identify the total Indian population “not enumerated in the Census,” it is not clear how this estimate was obtained (see table 3 on page 136).
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