Wealth and Culture in the South Quiz

PDF page 324: The South prospered, but its wealth was very unequally distributed. Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people who produced a good portion of the nation’s wealth, while poor southern White people envisioned a day when they might rise enough in the world to own enslaved people of their own. Because of the cotton boom, there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley by 1860 than anywhere else in the United States. However, in that same year, only 3 percent of White people enslaved more than fifty people, and two-thirds of White households in the South did not enslave any people at all (Figure 12.11). Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time; fewer White people enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840.

PDF page 324: The South prospered, but its wealth was very unequally distributed. Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people who produced a good portion of the nation’s wealth, while poor southern White people envisioned a day when they might rise enough in the world to own enslaved people of their own. Because of the cotton boom, there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley by 1860 than anywhere else in the United States. However, in that same year, only 3 percent of White people enslaved more than fifty people, and two-thirds of White households in the South did not enslave any people at all (Figure 12.11). Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time; fewer White people enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840.

PDF page 324: The South prospered, but its wealth was very unequally distributed. Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people who produced a good portion of the nation’s wealth, while poor southern White people envisioned a day when they might rise enough in the world to own enslaved people of their own. Because of the cotton boom, there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley by 1860 than anywhere else in the United States. However, in that same year, only 3 percent of White people enslaved more than fifty people, and two-thirds of White households in the South did not enslave any people at all (Figure 12.11). Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time; fewer White people enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840.

PDF page 324: The South prospered, but its wealth was very unequally distributed. Upward social mobility did not exist for the millions of enslaved people who produced a good portion of the nation’s wealth, while poor southern White people envisioned a day when they might rise enough in the world to own enslaved people of their own. Because of the cotton boom, there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley by 1860 than anywhere else in the United States. However, in that same year, only 3 percent of White people enslaved more than fifty people, and two-thirds of White households in the South did not enslave any people at all (Figure 12.11). Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time; fewer White people enslaved people in 1860 than in 1840.

PDF page 324: At the top of southern White society stood the planter elite, which comprised two groups. In the Upper South, an aristocratic gentry, generation upon generation of whom had grown up with slavery, held a privileged place. In the Deep South, an elite group of slaveholders gained new wealth from cotton. Some members of this group hailed from established families in the eastern states (Virginia and the Carolinas), while others came from humbler backgrounds. South Carolinian Nathaniel Heyward, a wealthy rice planter and member of the aristocratic gentry, came from an established family and sat atop the pyramid of southern slaveholders. He amassed an enormous estate; in 1850, he enslaved more than eighteen hundred people. When he died in 1851, he left an estate worth more than $2 million (approximately $63 million in 2014 dollars).

PDF page 324: At the top of southern White society stood the planter elite, which comprised two groups. In the Upper South, an aristocratic gentry, generation upon generation of whom had grown up with slavery, held a privileged place. In the Deep South, an elite group of slaveholders gained new wealth from cotton. Some members of this group hailed from established families in the eastern states (Virginia and the Carolinas), while others came from humbler backgrounds. South Carolinian Nathaniel Heyward, a wealthy rice planter and member of the aristocratic gentry, came from an established family and sat atop the pyramid of southern slaveholders. He amassed an enormous estate; in 1850, he enslaved more than eighteen hundred people. When he died in 1851, he left an estate worth more than $2 million (approximately $63 million in 2014 dollars).

PDF page 325: One of the people enslaved on Lloyd’s plantation was Frederick Douglass, who escaped in 1838 and became an abolitionist leader, writer, statesman, and orator in the North. In his autobiography, Douglass described the plantation’s elaborate gardens and racehorses, but also its underfed and brutalized enslaved population. Lloyd provided employment opportunities to other White people in Talbot County, many of whom served as slave traders and the “slave breakers” entrusted with beating and overworking unruly enslaved people into submission. Like other members of the planter elite, Lloyd himself served in a variety of local and national political offices. He was governor of Maryland from 1809 to 1811, a member of the House of Representatives from 1807 to 1809, and a senator from 1819 to 1826. As a representative and a senator, Lloyd defended slavery as the foundation of the American economy.

PDF page 325: One of the people enslaved on Lloyd’s plantation was Frederick Douglass, who escaped in 1838 and became an abolitionist leader, writer, statesman, and orator in the North. In his autobiography, Douglass described the plantation’s elaborate gardens and racehorses, but also its underfed and brutalized enslaved population. Lloyd provided employment opportunities to other White people in Talbot County, many of whom served as slave traders and the “slave breakers” entrusted with beating and overworking unruly enslaved people into submission. Like other members of the planter elite, Lloyd himself served in a variety of local and national political offices. He was governor of Maryland from 1809 to 1811, a member of the House of Representatives from 1807 to 1809, and a senator from 1819 to 1826. As a representative and a senator, Lloyd defended slavery as the foundation of the American economy.

PDF page 325: Below the wealthy planters were the yeoman farmers, or small landowners (Figure 12.13). Below yeomen were poor, landless White people, who made up the majority of White people in the South. These landless White men dreamed of owning land and enslaving people and served as slave overseers, drivers, and traders in the southern economy. In fact, owning land and enslaved people provided one of the only opportunities for upward social and economic mobility. In the South, living the American dream meant enslaving people, producing cotton, and owning land.

PDF page 326: down the road. Despite this unequal distribution of wealth, non-slaveholding White people shared with White slaveholders a common set of values, most notably a belief in White supremacy. White people, whether rich or poor, were bound together by racism. Slavery defused class tensions among them, because no matter how poor they were, White southerners had race in common with the mighty plantation owners. Non-slaveholders accepted the rule of the planters as defenders of their shared interest in maintaining a racial hierarchy. Significantly, all White people were also bound together by the constant, prevailing fear of slave uprisings.

PDF page 326: down the road. Despite this unequal distribution of wealth, non-slaveholding White people shared with White slaveholders a common set of values, most notably a belief in White supremacy. White people, whether rich or poor, were bound together by racism. Slavery defused class tensions among them, because no matter how poor they were, White southerners had race in common with the mighty plantation owners. Non-slaveholders accepted the rule of the planters as defenders of their shared interest in maintaining a racial hierarchy. Significantly, all White people were also bound together by the constant, prevailing fear of slave uprisings.

PDF page 326: Daniel Robinson Hundley was a well-educated lawyer who was born into a slaveholding family from Alabama. He earned a degree from Harvard and resided in the North, where he began working on a book meant to counter the common northern assumption, including that the South was made up exclusively of two tiers of White residents: the very wealthy planter class and the very poor landless White people. In his 1860 book, Social Relations in Our Southern States, Hundley describes what he calls the “Southern Yeomen,” a social group he insists is roughly equivalent to the middle-class farmers of the North. “But you have no Yeomen in the South, my dear Sir? Beg your pardon, our dear Sir, but we have—hosts of them. I thought you had only poor White Trash? Yes, we dare say as much—and that the moon is made of green cheese! . . . Know, then, that the Poor Whites of the South constitute a separate class to themselves; the Southern Yeomen are as distinct from them as the Southern Gentleman is from the Cotton Snob. Certainly the Southern Yeomen are nearly always poor, at least so far as this world’s goods are to be taken into account. As a general thing they own no slaves; and even in case they do, the wealthiest of them rarely possess more than from ten to fifteen. . . . The Southern Yeoman much resembles in his speech, religious opinions, household arrangements, indoor sports, and family traditions, the middle class farmers of the Northern States. He is fully as intelligent as the latter, and is on the whole much better versed in the lore of politics and the provisions of our Federal and State Constitutions. . . . [A]lthough not as a class pecuniarily interested in slave property, the Southern Yeomanry are almost unanimously pro-slavery in sentiment. Nor do we see how any honest, thoughtful person can reasonably find fault with them on this account. —D. R. Hundley, Social Relations in Our Southern States, 1860” What elements of social relations in the South is Hundley attempting to emphasize for his readers? In what respects might his position as an educated person born into a relatively wealthy family influence his understanding of social relations in the South?