
Depending on how ur looking at it. Across the US in general duh u can’t own a slave in states where it’s illegal gang. But if we look specifically at all of the southern states where it was legal roughly 25-30% of the population owned slaves and as we look at the states the percentages increase. Mississippi alone almost half the population, 49%, did own at least one slave
You DO realize that “back then” there weren’t even estimated to be a billion people on the planet right? Even conservative estimates don’t have the world population exceeding a billion until like 1800 AD. You see it with the lens of there being 10 billion people alive on earth and only a fraction of them being slave owners but it was a much larger problem