In the year 1850, the state of Alabama conducted a census of its citizens. What makes this state census unusual is that 1850 was also when the U. S. Constitution required a Federal census to be conducted.

This census recorded by name only the head of each household. Any other household members were simply counted by age group, mental status, and whether or not they were enslaved.

White males 18-45 were singled out because of the possibility of conscription. The United States warred with Mexico over the 1845 U. S. annexation of the Republic of Texas. That war ended just two years prior to this census. Meanwhile, the annexation sparked a national debate over whether or not the new territory gained would permit slavery. Delegates from nine slave-holding states, including Alabama, met in Nashville, Tennessee in June 1850 to determine their response if slavery were to be outlawed in the new territories. They were already discussing succession from the United States if they didn’t get their way, which might have motivated Alabama to conduct its own census apart from the Federal one. Succession would mean war against the United States and Alabama would need to raise an army, so a count of able-bodied men would be important. This was more than a decade prior to the Civil War, by the way.

Insanity was then a growing concern. “Enumerations of the mentally ill and mentally retarded were included in the six U. S. censuses conducted between 1840 and 1890. Inclusion of these categories reflected a new concern for the mentally ill and mentally retarded that was emerging at that time as part of a new social consciousness” (Gorwitz). This state census was probably following the Federal move to collect this data.

Counting the number of slaves was politically important. The “Three-Fifths Clause” of the U. S. Constitution counted each slave as three-fifths of a person toward a state’s population. Population totals were then used to determine how much Federal tax a state would owe, how many seats a state would have in the U. S. House of Representatives, and how many electoral votes a state would have in presidential elections. Including slaves in the population totals for the Southern states increased the political power of those states at the Federal level. The enslaved, meanwhile, had no say in matters.

The Alabama census recorded Jesse Scott’s household in Benton County as such:

White males under 21	3
White males over 21	1
White males between 18 and 45	1
White males over 45
White females under 21	5
White females over 21	1
Insane within county
Insane sent abroad
Number of slaves
Number of free persons of color
Total inhabitants	11

Jesse’s name appears to be written as “Jsy M Scott.” It’s faded, but if you look closely you can make it out. Due to the fading, this record was indexed under “J H Scott” at Ancestry.com.

We can easily cross-reference these numbers against the 1850 Federal census to figure out who was enumerated. Unlike this state census, the Federal census recorded every member of the household by name.

White males under 21	William Thomas Scott (16) Willis Lee Scott (15) John Henry Scott (9)
White males over 21	Jesse M. Scott (39)
White males between 18 and 45	Jesse M. Scott (39)
White males over 45
White females under 21	M. J. Scott (12) Mary Ann Scott (8) Sarah F. Scott (6) S. Elizabeth Scott (4) Eliza J. Scott (2)
White females over 21	Senia P. Scott (31)
Insane within county
Insane sent abroad
Number of slaves
Number of free persons of color
Total inhabitants	11, but that’s wrong. The enumerator simply summed the row to get 11, but that counted Jesse twice (Males over 21 and Males 18-45). The correct total should be 10.

Strangely, there is another sheet in this record with the exact same households enumerated in the same order in the same handwriting. I don’t know if it was just a handwritten copy, or if these households were counted twice. The second entry for Jesse, with the same “Jsy” abbreviation of his first name, is below. This was indexed as “Jas M Scott” at Ancestry.com.

Bibliography

Ancestry.com, Alabama State Census, 1820-1866 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010), Ancestry.com, Record for Jas M Scott. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1576&h=740693&indiv=try.

Ancestry.com, Alabama State Census, 1820-1866 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010), Ancestry.com, Record for J H Scott. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1576&h=752715&indiv=try.

Wikipedia contributors, ‘Mexican–American War’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 October 2021, 21:14 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mexican%E2%80%93American_War&oldid=1048026289> [accessed 6 October 2021]

Wikipedia contributors, ‘Nashville Convention’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 January 2021, 19:39 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nashville_Convention&oldid=1002721486> [accessed 6 October 2021]

Kurt Gorwitz. “Census Enumeration of the Mentally Iii and the Mentally Retarded in the Nineteenth Century.” Health Services Reports, vol. 89, no. 2, Association of Schools of Public Health, 1974, pp. 180–87, https://doi.org/10.2307/4595007.

Wikipedia contributors, ‘Three-fifths Compromise’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 October 2021, 20:39 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Three-fifths_Compromise&oldid=1048021096> [accessed 6 October 2021]