Mehr zum Titel: | Cover; Half-Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; List of Tables; List of Abbreviations; Acknowledgments; Introduction The "chosen people": Agrarian Myths and Messier Realities; Prologue "The interest of the county": Prince George's County Levy Court and Local Politics, Economy, and Society; 1 "The way to make a huge fortune": The Planters; 2 "One must differentiate oneself a little": Planter Gentility, Economy, Dynasty, and Politics; 3 "I don't stand to the will": Yeomen Farmers and Smallholders; 4 "Being allowed the liberty": Tenant Farmers and Artisans 5 "The Torment with the Servants": Wage Workers, Servants, and SlavesEpilogue "Objects of distress": The Poor and the Destitute; Appendix A Statistical Analysis of Wealth Distribution and Mobility; Statistical Tables; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index |
Inhalt: | ""Republican"" writing and its historians portray the early republic in broadly egalitarian, communalistic, pre-market terms. Yet this book shows that census, tax, probate, land, court, and planters' records reveal vigorous markets and extensive inequality and individualism in Prince George's County, Maryland, and the wider tobacco south. Landownership, for example, was limited to 25 percent of free households by 1820, and the book explores complex relations between planters, yeomen, artisans, tenants, wage-workers, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and men and women on a uniquely deta |
