10.4: The White Majority

A. The Middle Class

1. A commercial middle class of merchants, bankers, factors, and lawyers:

a. arose to sell southern crops on the world market

b. lived in cities that acted as shipping centers for agricultural goods

B. Poor White People

1. Between 30 to 50 percent of southern whites were landless. 2. These poor whites lived a marginal existence as laborers

and tenants.3. They engaged in complex and sometimes clandestine

relations with slaves.4. Some yeomen hoped to acquire slaves themselves, but

many were content with self sufficient non-market agriculture.

5. Yeomen supported slavery because they believed that it brought them higher status.

Slaveholding and Class Structure

C. Yeomen Values

1. Two-thirds of all southern whites lived in nonslaveholding families.

2. Most yeomen were self-sufficient farmers. 3. The strong sense of community was

reinforced by close kin connections and bartering.