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I N T R O D U C T I O N HE GREAT planters of the antebellum South exerted immense influence within their region and profoundly affected the destiny of this nation. They dominated the economy of the South, wielded enormous political power at all levels of government, and set the tone for the societyof which theyformed the apex. Well-bred, cosmopolitan in background and outlook, intellectually curious, broadly educated, articulate, trained for leadership, and gifted with exceptional entrepreneurial skills, they constituted one of the most significant groups in American history. As contemporary scientist Joseph LeConte once remarked, "nothing could be more remarkable than the wide reading, the deep reflection, the refined culture Sc the originality of thought &, reflection characteristic " of this class.1 Although many scholars haveproduced notable studies of the planter class in recent years,2 no one has yet made a systematic attempt to identify the elite slaveholders—particularly those with multiple holdings, fre1 . MS excerpt from the autobiography of Joseph LeConte, in Langdon Cheves, Jr., Papers, SCHS. 2. A partial list would include the following:James Oakes, TheRuling Race:A History ofAmerican Slaveholders (NewYork, 1982), a study of the lesser planters;James L. Roark, Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York, 1977) and Michael Wayne, The Reshaping of Plantation Society: The Natchez District, 1860-1880 (Baton Rouge, 1983), on the transition from slave to free labor; Jonathan M. Wiener, Social Origins of the New South: Alabama, 18601885 (Baton Rouge, 1978), and Dwight B. Billings, Jr., Planters and the Making of a "New South": Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1979), on the persistence of planter hegemony in the postwar period; Catherine Clinton, The PlantationMistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York, 1982), Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1988), Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge, 1984), and Joan E. Cashin, "The Structure of Antebellum Planter Families: 'The Ties that Bound Us was Strong,'" JSH 56 (February 1990): 55-70, on planter families; Joan E. Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York, 1991), on the effect of migration on family structure and gender roles; and Laurence T M A S T E R S O F T H E B I G H O U S E quently extending across both county and state boundaries—and to analyze their characteristics, attitudes, values, and ideology.3 This is the task upon which I embarked more than thirty years ago and which I have pursued assiduously for the last decade. Originally conceived as a study of such prominent planter dynasties as the Cockes of Virginia, the Hairstons of North Carolina and Virginia, the Heywards and Hamptons of South Carolina, the Barrows and Bringiers of Louisiana , and the Surgets of Mississippi, the project was subsequently extended to embrace all individual planters in the fifteen slave states who owned 250or more slaves in 1850 and / or 1860 as determined by the manuscript slave census schedules for those two years.4 1 commenced this project with no preconceived thesis, nor have I been guided by any of the so-called theories, models, and paradigms to which the current generation of historians seems increasingly wedded. I have chosen, instead, to answer, primarily through manuscript sources, such historically significant questions as the following: Who were these aristocratic slaveholders? What was the structure of their families and the status of women—physically, emotionally, and culturally—within those families? What was their philosophy of education? How did they accumulate their property? Did a significant number invest capital in economic enterprises outside the agricultural sector? What was their role in the sectional crisis of the 18505 and the ensuing Civil War? How does one account for the extreme secessionist position adopted by the South Carolinians in contrast to the staunchly unionist posture of many of their equally affluent counterparts in the Natchez District? How did these once-wealthy elite slaveholders adjust to the postwar environment? And, perhaps most important, did these great planters evince a unique, precapitalist, paternalistic world view, as Eugene D. Genovese and a host of other contempoShore , Southern Capitalists: The Ideological Leadership of an Elite, 1832-1885 (Chapel Hill, 1986), on the capitalistic orientation of large slaveholders. 3. Such an effort was undertaken, in part, by Joseph K. Menn and Chalmers G. Davidson with respect to...

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