Editing Wharton County, Texas (section)

==Legacy of slavery==
A map commissioned by the United States government in the 1860s, and sold by the [[Union Army]] for the benefit of wounded troops, indicates that, based on data from the 1860 [[United States Census|national census]], 80.9% of the population of Wharton County was [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved]].<ref name="schulte">[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/visualizing-slavery/ Susan Schulte, "Visualizing Slavery"], Blog, ''New York Times'', December 9, 2010, accessed December 10, 2013</ref> The county then had a total of 3,380 people. This was the highest proportion of slaves in a single county in the state of Texas. Demand related to development of new areas for [[Horticulture|cultivation]] had caused the number of [[History of slavery in Texas|slaves overall in the state]] to triple between 1850 and 1860, from 58,000 to 182,566.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/10/opinion/20101210_Disunion_SlaveryMap.html Susan Schulte, "Visualizing Slavery": "A Map of Slavery Interactive Feature"], ''New York Times'', December 10, 2010</ref>