But if that figure is to be trusted, then the number of slave owners compared to the total U.S. population of free people (around 27 million) is about 1.4 percent. So, another error in using the "1.4%" statistic is that it relies on the total U.S. population rather than the total population of states that allowed slavery and those states' slave owners. Other Lead Stories fact checks about slavery include one debunking the claim that President Joe Biden's great-grandfather owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy (here) and one debunking the claim that an image showed a Black Friday slave auction in 1904 (here).