US History › Section F · Westward expansion and the cotton South › Topic F.8
Wealth and culture in the South
Cotton made the antebellum South one of the richest regions in the world for its free population, yet that wealth sat in remarkably few hands. Understanding who held it, how white southerners of every class came to defend slavery, and the codes of honour and gender built around it explains much of the South's politics before the Civil War.
In this topic
- A rich region, unevenly shared
- Planters, yeomen and poor whites
- Why non-slaveholders defended slavery
- Worked example: weighing a dissenting voice
- Planter power in politics
- The culture of honour
- Gender and the plantation household
- Slavery as a positive good
- Worked example: the wage-slavery argument
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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