Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast MississippiDuke University Press, 1994 - 258 頁 In Poor Whites of the Antebellum South, Charles C. Bolton gives a distinct voice to one of the most elusive groups in the society of the Old South. Bolton's detailed examination reveals much about the lives of these landless white tenants and laborers and their relationship to yeoman farmers, black slaves, free blacks and elite whites. Providing a provocative analysis of the failure of the Jeffersonian "yeoman ideal" of democracy in white-majority areas, this book also shows how poor whites represented a more significant presence on the political, economic, and social landscape than previously had been thought. Looking at two specific regions--the "settled" central piedmont of North Carolina and the "frontier" of northeast Mississippi--Bolton describes how poor whites played an important, though circumscribed, role in the local economy. Dependent on temporary employment, they represented a troubling presence in a society based on the principles of white independence and black slavery. Although perceived by southern leaders as a threat, poor whites, Bolton argues, did not form a political alliance with either free or enslaved blacks because of numerous factors including white racism, kinship ties, religion, education, and mobility. A concluding discussion of the crisis of 1860-61 examines the rejection of secession by significant numbers of poor whites, as well as the implications for their future as the Old South turned toward the new. Poor Whites of the Antebellum South sheds light on a group often neglected in southern history. It is an important contribution that will be of interest to all students and historians of the American South. |
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1860 Federal Census acres agricultural Alabama Andrew Johnson antebellum South antisecession candidates Census for Davidson Census for Randolph central Piedmont Chatham County Chickasaw citizens Confederate convention election cooperationist corn cotton County in 1860 crop Davidson and Randolph Davidson County Records delegates Democratic diss disunion economic example farm free blacks free suffrage Governor Guilford County households immediate secession Itawamba County John Jonathan Worth Land Company Papers landless farmer landless whites leaders MDAH Mississippi Land Company Moore County NCDAH neighborhood North Carolina northeast Mississippi Old Southwest percent planters political Pontotoc and Tishomingo Pontotoc County poor whites popular population Randolph County Records Richard Bolton Schedules secession secession convention SHSW slave patrols slaveholders slaveowners slavery slaves southern state's Tax Lists tenants tion Tippah County Tishomingo County turnout Union unionist University of North vigilance committee vote voters wealthy Whig white laborers William yeoman yeoman farmers York and Mississippi