Poor Whites

I really enjoyed my Jacksonian America class this summer.  I did my book review for the class on a book called Poor Whites of the Antebellum South.  I realized how little people know about poor whites in Antebellum times because history books focus on plantation owners and slaves.  So I am posting my entire book review on here (It was only 4 pages), behind the cut.  It is important for history not to ignore entire groups of people.





Many historians studying or discussing the Old South focus on plantation owners or slaves. However, not every inhabitant of the Old South fits into those categories. Many other groups of people lived in the Old South, such as free blacks, yeoman farmers and other middle class whites, and poor, landless whites. The book Poor Whites of the Antebellum South by Charles C. Bolton analyzes the effect of poor whites on politics, economics, and society. Poor whites, mostly ignored by historians, played an important role in antebellum life.

Charles C. Bolton wrote Poor Whites of the Antebellum South. He is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and also is the Director of Oral History there. Bolton reveals his sources for writing about "poor whites" not only on the bibliography page, but also in the book itself. He says he found historical evidence about poor whites in wealthier Southerner's manuscript collections, state records, newspapers, and in federal census information. The bibliography section iself reveals that some of his sources came from Duke University Manuscript Collections, both Mississippi and North Carolina's departments of archives, libraries and archives located in Mississippi and North Carolina, University of Mississippi Manuscript Collections, and Journals of the Senate and House of Representatives. He used both primary and secondary sources as well as many other sources, such as articles and books. The various sources all seem diverse and reputable. The volume of primary sources he used certainly adds to the accuracy of his research.

Bolton's intent on writing this book is extremely clear. Both in antebellum times and today, there are many negative stereotypes associated with whites who lived in poverty in antebellum times. Bolton reveals a common definition of the term "poor white" to be "A person with little or no property who also has a low social standing because of certain negative attributes: laziness, shiftlessness, and irresponsiblity" (4). According to D.R. Hundley, a southern slaveholder who wrote about classes in 1860, poverty was a result of choices people made, which is a good argument for a someone who is defending slavery to make, because slavery "apologists" did not want anyone to believe the institution of slavery drove nonslaveholders into poverty. Therefore, Bolton says that his intent in writing this book is to make the experiences and lifestyles of landless whites in the antebellum South more clear and to learn how their experiences compared to other white nonslaveholders.

Bolton takes the reader back to Central Piedmont in North Carolina, as well as Northeast Mississippi to reveal how the lives of landless whites mirrored one another in the antebellum South, even though they are different areas. His focus on people of these two specific areas helps paint a portrait of how landless whites lived in these areas. Bolton also touches on the Southwest, where many poor whites migrated in hopes of fulfilling a dream of acquiring land. He also uses specific examples of people who lived this way, such as Pleasant Hunter, John Lewis, and Thomas Varner in order to make the experiences he describes more personable to the reader. Bolton's entire purpose for this book is to challenge and correct the stereotypes associated with landless whites, therefore constantly referring to them as a group detracts from their humanity. Calling them by name puts a face to the experience.
Bolton supports his purpose by discussing how poor whites lived differently than wealthy Southern landowners. Thirty to fifty percent of all southern whites were landless. They rarely held political office, although they did take part in elections. Economically, poor whites depended on mostly temporary employment. They were mostly laborers that gained employment from wealthier whites on an intermittent basis. Some landless whites worked as wage laborers who would take a small amount of pay to aid plantations or farms at the height of the harvest. Many poor whites labored under share-tenancy agreements, in which they paid a portion of their crop as rent.

Tenancy was more profitable than wage-laboring. The average Mississippi tenant in 1860 had a personal property value of $378 and the average wage laborer had a personal property value of $158. However, tenants sometimes had to deal with landlords abusing their power. Sometimes landlords required more than they bargained for by forcing their children to work for free and sometimes sued tenants for not preforming contractual duties. However, sometimes the poor whites would put their own children to work outside the home for need of the extra income. Bolton spends a great deal of time emphasizing how the Southern economy relied upon slavery, which greatly influenced white poverty. Because of slavery, white labor remained only a supplement to slave labor. Slaves and white wage laborers often worked alongside one another in the fields, which gave whites the sharp realization how the enslavement of blacks influenced their poverty. It also showed blacks that the abuse of power by wealthy whites did not just influence themselves, but poor whites as well.

Slavery also rendered the wages white laborers were paid very low. In northeast Mississippi, for instance, the wealthier and more prosperous the landowners and slaveholders became, the more the tenants and landless whites suffered. As slaveholders because more prosperous, they would demand more "respectable" tenants who could give a more substantial rent. Slavery prevented the procurment of regular employment for poor whites, so they had to move from job to job, relying on wealthy whites for tenancy. Because of this system, poor whites rarely changed their economic status. However, some did change their economic status by acquiring land out west.

Slavery was not the only thing to oppress the poor white economically. Bolton notes that the U.S. had a credit-driven economy in the mid-nineteenth century. Both slave labor and a credit driven economy had negative results for poor whites. The credit system in the south favored the wealthier and more reputable. Poor whites did not always meet the criteria and when they did use credit, were subject to the debt obligations of the wealthy. The landless whites moving out west to realize their dream of being landowners often had difficulty buying land because of not meeting credit requirements and having insufficient captial. Mostly, poor whites only used credit when it was necessary for survival. However, often, it was necessary for survival.

Because Bolton is using this book to compare poor whites to other Southern whites, he does note ways that poor whites of the South were similar to wealthy white Southerners. Politically, poor whites usually did not support free or enslaved blacks due to racism, religion, education, or societal norms. Poor whites did, indeed, take part in violence against blacks, which does suggest that the society of white superiority they lived in influenced them. Both land-owning and landless whites usually shared common religious practices, and mostly that was Evangelical Protestantism. Going to church with wealthy landowners often is what helped landless whites procure employment.

The last half of the book is focused on how landless whites viewed and participated in politics of the antebellum period. White nonslaveholders enjoyed going out on election day and exercising their right to vote, one of the few powers they had. They certainly appreciated a good campaign barbecue, political speech, or parade. Most landless whites voted basec on a candidates personality rather than political stance. Although individual poor whites expressed personal resentment toward wealthy slave-owners, a class debate between whites did not occur in a public forum due to most candidates, both Whig and Democrat, owning slaves. During the secession crisis at the beginning of the Civil War, many poor whites were for secession simply for the economic opportunities it might have yielded them, such as looting and plundering. However, there were poor whites did not like the idea of secession.

Whether they supported secession or not, most poor white men would be attracted to the stable employment that came with enlisting in the Confederate Army (paying eleven dollars per month). About three-fourths of Southern males that were military age fought in the Confederate Army and one in three of them died in the war. As horribly as the war affected each American that lived in the mid-nineteenth century, the end of the war did usher in hope for landless, poor whites. The new economic system built after the Civil War gave poor whites new opportunities. The New South had some industrialization that created new labor opportunities for poor whites. Also, jobs in agriculture formerly held by slaves were now open to poor whites. Bolton ends this tale of the poor, landless whites with hope of a brighter future.