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X-Sender: jlindgren@mail.telocity.com To: H-NET/OIEAHC Electronic Association in Early American Studies <H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Delivered-to: H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU X-Sent: 12 Jun 2002 16:48:04 GMT Original-recipient: rfc822;john.saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu The probate data are consistent with Professor Hoffer's claim (though they would provide only weak support about motivations in any event). In my recently published article with Justin Heather, Counting Guns in Early America, 43 Wm & Mary L. Rev. 1777 (2002), we present data about gun ownership in probate inventories in late colonial America. Contrary to Arming America's claims that gun ownership was very low in the 1765-90 period and that there was only a few percentage points difference between the North (15-16%) and the South (18%) (p. 445), we found wide regional differences, with 69% of inventories in the South containing guns, but only 50% of New England estates and 41% of estates in the middle colonies. Further for the larger slave owners (2/3rds of the total slaveowners), 81% had guns listed, while for smaller slave owners and non slaveowners, only 46-48% owned guns. This does not show what Jefferson or anyone was thinking, but it does support the notion that slave ownership and guns went together in late colonial America. James Lindgren Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA jlindgren@law.northwestern.edu
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