re: #280 Decatur Deb

For perspective, in the peak year of slavery there were 2,341 farms holding 100 or more slaves. Of those, 22 farms had more than 500. The largest count of owners, 79,000, held 1 slave.
faculty.weber.edu

In pre-mechanization farming buying a slave would be somewhat similar to investing in a combine or other piece of machinery, or work livestock like a horse or ox, to simply help out with the labor.