Delaware, Maryland and Virginia were three of the original 13 colonies that kept slavery legal until the close of the Civil War in 1865. In 1840, dense populations of slaves worked the tobacco fields that saturated the central and coastal parts of Virginia and Maryland. The northwestern section of Virginia had relatively few slaves in 1840. Some political leaders in western Virginia opposed the practice because it weakened the labor market for poor whites. Virginia's western territory eventually broke off from the Commonwealth to become the state of West Virginia in 1863. At the start of the Civil War, Virginia had the highest number of slaves of any state in the Union.
North and South Carolina were also among the original 13 colonies that kept slavery legal until the Civil War. Rice and indigo planters along the South Carolina coast relied on large numbers of slaves to cultivate their crops. Enslaved persons working in this region lived under particularly brutal conditions. Slaves on rice plantations endured grueling labor that exposed them to malaria and other diseases and were required to work through illness or injury. In both North and South Carolina, as in most slave states, the law prohibited individuals from teaching slaves to read and write.
Kentucky gained statehood in 1792, and the legalization of slavery was codified in Article IX of the state's constitution. In 1796, Tennessee was admitted as a slave state. The slave population in Tennessee was concentrated in the western region of the state, which produced significant quantities of cotton, and in 1840, the state had more than 183,000 slaves. Tennessee slave codes gave enslaved persons the right to food, shelter, clothes and medical care. In 1835, slaves in Tennessee gained the right to trial by jury -- an unusual protection among slave-holding states.
In the lower South, Georgia was one of the original states, while Mississippi gained statehood in 1817 and Alabama in 1819. All were slave states. Georgia law prohibited slave owners from setting their slaves free and distributing abolitionist material was a capital offense. Also, while owners were not legally permitted to abuse or kill their slaves, they were rarely prosecuted for doing so. Alabama slave codes fined any person who taught either free blacks or slaves to read or write up to 500 dollars, an enormous amount for the time.
The United States acquired the territory that comprises Missouri, Arkansas and parts of Louisiana from France in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Louisiana was admitted as a slave state in 1812. Missouri was admitted as a slave state with the Missouri Compromise in 1821 on the condition that Maine be admitted as a free state. The Missouri Compromise also stipulated that slavery would not be permitted in land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase north of 36 degrees, 30 minutes of latitude. Arkansas, which fell below that marker, was admitted as a slave state in 1836.