Sion and Kitsie and the local economic ladder

in the 1860 census, the value of sion and kitsie’s property (land, tools, stock)  was $620.  by contrast, a wealthy neighbor, thomas cole, the man who lent $98.81 to sion, was worth $52,000.  the average for the 111 haw ridge households, neighbors to sion and kitsie, that owned land, was $3,193.  sion and kitsie were far, far below average, in fact, of the households that owned land, only 33 were valued below sion & kitsie, and  77 were valued higher.   to get a fairer comparison, we can drop the nine highest estates, those valued at $10,000 or more, in which case the average is $1,663 and sion and kitsie are still far below that.

this comparison gives us a hint of sion and kitsie’s rank in the local economic and social structure, but looking only at  the wealth as counted in the census is to miss the larger picture. it’s all relative. keep in mind, some of his neighbors owned other human beings, who were counted and valuated as property by the census-taker.  sion and kitsie did not own slaves.  while clearly in the bottom half of their neighbors in terms of property, the family was not destitute, they owned land, they produced cotton, which is not a subsistence crop, they could hunt and fish to supplement the food they raised and they were part of a larger family unit made up of kitsies’s people that probably pooled and shared labor and resources.