Kirsten Quantz Infographic

70%

The amount of slaves held by slaveholders in Bexar County, 1860

The percentage of occupations held African Americans in San Antonio, 1897.

The percentage of occupations of enslaved peoples slaveholder.

Percentage of occupations held by Afro-American males in San Antonio, 1870

Bexar County population by race 1860-1890

African Americans who migrated to Bexar County in the 1800s were met with plenty of hardships, specifically, challenges surrounding their jobs.

The amount of African Americans compared to white people in Bexar County is crucial in understanding the scarcity of job opportunities for African Americans.

Because these African Americans arrived in America without the proper resources needed for job opportunities, many of them were unskilled and forced to learn the skills needed for jobs, which pushed them to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

It's essential to understand the occupations of slaveholders because it gives a better grasp of the skills that African Americans may have learned and performed as it was taught by the slaveholders during that time.

Knowing just how many slaves were held by slaveholders gives us some insight into how many African Americans were learning skills from their time being slaves in Bexar County and how that may have prevented them from learning other job skills.