Caribbean Project: Were Georgia’s Poor Whites Exploited By Planters?

Georgia

Here’s an excerpt from Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia, 1750-1860 on the “exploitation” of poor Whites by the planter class:

“Cultivating Race argues that nonelite Whites in Georgia not only benefited from the rise of white supremacy but pushed hardest to enact legislative changes to make Georgia conform to the tenets of the ideology. White supremacy provided slave owners with an argument to counter the growing assault on slavery by northern abolitionists, but it also provided nonelite whites with a rationale to shape slavery in line with their interests.

Contrary to depictions of white laborers and yeomen as subordinates manipulated or oppressed by their social and economic superiors, nonelite white men actively sought to protect their economic interests. By emphasizing both elite and nonelite white men as agents of change, this study highlights class divisions over issues of race and citizenship.  The vast majority of nonelite white men in Georgia supported the institution of slavery, even in the late antebellum era, when rampant speculation inflated prices and placed slave ownership well beyond their means. But they also believed in republicanism and the revolutionary ideal of the equality of all white men. Cognizant that their numerical advantage provided them leverage to shape social policy and influence political debate, nonelite white men pushed for reforms that democratized slavery.”

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4 Comments

  1. “The wall beside his desk in Hitler’s private office is decorated with a large picture of Henry Ford. In the ante-chamber there is a large table covered with books, nearly all of which are a translation of a book written and published by Henry Ford.” http://www.stockmaven.com/nytimes122022pg2.htm

    http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html

    Ford was very weak on Christian doctrine, however. He imagined that the Oriental misnotion of “reincarnation” was compatible with the Faith.

  2. More evidence that No Man is Tamer. Tamer was planning on finishing RCIA when he disappeared; was supposed to finish this Easter. He must have failed out of it.
    Mosin, Sirach is a great book.

  3. PGRT and Tamer, someone I know did the RCIA recently too, just so he could add it to his list of religions he had joined, including Judaism which was the most difficult conversion so far. He started out with Lutheranism, which involved many weeks of cathechism but otherwise simple. He said the Roman Catholic catechetical course of “Mystagogy” is where you learn what they really believe.

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