How many blacks lived in the south by 1860?

By 1860, approximately 4 million Black individuals lived in the southern United States. The vast majority of them were enslaved, constituting around 90% of the total Black population in the South at that time. The region was heavily reliant on plantation agriculture, which drove the demand for enslaved labor. This demographic significantly influenced the social, economic, and political landscape of the South leading up to the Civil War.