official end of American slavery, when it was abolished 155 years ago in Texas, the last state practicing it. Black people were so dehumanized at the time they were not only considered chattel by half the nation, up until that moment the federal government counted them as 3/5 human in the Census and House of Representatives.The 19th century may seem like a long time ago, but an 80-year-old person living today could have realistically heard stories of slavery and The Three-Fifths Compromise from.