Mathematics, Demographics & Slavery: The 1790 Census in Ratio, Percents & Graphs

The first U.S. Census was conducted in 1790 to decide on the apportionment of the Congress. The people counted were Free White Males Over !6, who were allowed to vote, White Males Under 16, Free White Females, Enslaved Persons and "Others." Your students will use this data to express relationships between different groups, most significantly the ratio of "Free White Men" to "Enslaved Persons." Please note that this refers to the people who worked as slaves to the current terminology as "Enslaved Persons."

During the course of the investigation, your students will learn how to read and interpret a large amount of data, how to round off numbers of different sizes "appropriately," how to use those rounded numbers to create ratios and then simplify them, and express those ratios as percents. Finally, they will take that data and use it to create unique bar graphs that tell the story of the United States in 1790.

This is based on actual data and includes a complete guide to teaching the unit.