Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century South Book

	Acknowledgments
	Abbreviations
	Introduction	1
1	Social and Demographic Characteristics	18
2	Religious and Cultural Characteristics	52
3	Wives, Mothers, and Daughters: Gender Relations in the Big House	90
4	Agrarian Empires: Acquisition, Production, Profits, Problems, and Management	122
5	Toiling for Old "Massa": Slave Labor on the Great Plantations	175
6	Capitalists All: Investments and Capital Accumulation Outside the Agricultural Sector	217
7	Political Attitudes and Influence: The Response of the Elite to the First Sectional Crisis	238
8	The Road to Armageddon: The Role of the Planter Elite in the Secession Crisis	275
9	Days of Judgment: The Demise of a Slave Society	316
10	Postwar Adjustment: The Legacy of Emancipation and Defeat	373
11	Lords and Capitalists: The Ideology of the Master Class	406
App. A	Slaveholders with 500 or More Slaves, 1850	427
App. B	Slaveholders with 500 or More Slaves, 1860	431
App. C	Elite Slaveholders by State of Residence, 1850	439
App. D	Elite Slaveholders by State of Residence, 1860	456
	Bibliography	485
	Index	503