The+People+of+Augusta

__** The People of Augusta **__ From 1820 to 1840, the population of Augusta County, shown as a percentage of the Virginia population, remained steady at about 1.6 percent. It increased to 1.7 percent by 1850 and remained there until the war started in 1860. Since there was little population growth, it is likely there was little economic or social change occurring in County. Nothing changed, like new technology or new land to be farmed, in the county to make people leave or move to Augusta During the election of 1860, the population of Augusta county primarily supported president candidate John Bell. The map above shows the results of the 1860 election, with Virginia proving to be a supporter of Bell. During the presidential election, 59% of the population in Augusta voted for Bell, while 35% voted for Stephen Douglas and the remaining 5% voted for John Breckinridge. The Whig political party was the party with the most activists in the county, followed by the Democratic Party. John Bell won Augusta county in the election with 66% of the county vote, followed by Douglas with 28%, and John Breckinridge, the pro-slavery candidate had less than 6% of the county's vote. **Slave Population:** Slaves accounted for about twenty percent of Augusta County’s population during the forty-year period after 1820 – compared to the rest of the South, that was a low percentage. While the numbers of slaves in Virginia and the Upper South declined significantly by 1860, the percentage of slaves in the Lower South actually increased. Compared to the rest of Virginia and the South, Augusta County had a much lower percentage of slaves in the population, meaning that Augusta County residents did not rely on forced labor to the same extent as other, more agricultural areas did. The first churches founded in Augusta county were Presbyterian**.** Augusta also had a significant Episcopal presence, in part because the church was legally established in Virginia until the Revolution. There were several Lutheran churches also in the county. Methodists were also in the community, but they were looked down upon. German Reformed churches were in Augusta County because a sizable amount of the citizens were German. United Brethren were also present. Baptists had two churches in the county, and Catholics had one church in Augusta.
 * Population and Politics**
 * [[image:http://www.teachersparadise.com/ency/en/media/f/f9/electoralcollege1860_large.png width="522" height="279" align="center" caption="Voting Map of the Election of 1860"]] ||
 * Voting Map of the Election of 1860 ||
 * Slave and Freedmen Population of Augusta **
 * Free Black Population:** In Augusta County, the percentage of free blacks increased until 1850. This trend was visible throughout Virginia and the Upper South. In the Lower South, it was much more pronounced, and the percentage of free blacks declined drastically starting in 1830. The loss of free blacks throughout the South and in Augusta showed that African-Americans were leaving the South and moving to where conditions were better for them - in the North.
 * Slave-holding Households:** There were 807 different households in Augusta County, and 207 of them owned slaves. There were very few large plantations typically associated with Southern farming – only one house and between twenty-one and thirty slaves and another had over thirty-one slaves. The vast majority of slave-owning homes had between two to ten slaves. This statistic show that while slavery was important to Augusta's economy, the county was nowhere near as reliant on slavery as the Deep South was.
 * Religion **