were variations of climate and
soil which made certain sections better adapted to slavery and the
plantation system than others. Between the foothills just to the south
of the Appalachian mountains and the flat sandy levels of the sea
coast lay a central rich alluvial region called the "black belt" at
first after the color of its soil and later after the color of the
majority of its inhabitants. This section was peculiarly well suited
to the growth of the cotton plant and here, after the pell-mell of
immigration which poured into the southwest with the development of
cotton culture began to take on the forms of a fixed social order,
arose those large cotton plantations which were the central feature of
southern ante-bellum civilization. The "black belt" included virtually
the whole of South Carolina, a strip through central Georgia and
south-central Alabama and the rich alluvial lands along the
Mississippi and Red rivers in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Here the large plantations gradually absorbed the lands of the
frontiersmen and small farmers who had preceded them and spread over
all the lands where the gang labor of the slave system could be
prosecuted with profit[316].

This slave aristocracy of the "black belt," which determined the
social standards and shaped the morals and directed the political
policies of the South, was composed of a few powerful families who
through their wealth, social standing and talents for leadership
controlled the destinies of a vast section. Perhaps 500,000 out of a
total white population of 9,000,000 profited by slavery in 1860, but
out of this number some ten thousand families, including such
familiar names as Hampton, Rutledge, Brooks, Hayne, Lee, Mason, Tyler,
Wise, Polk, Breckenridge and Claibourne, really determined the
policies of the South[317]. Beneath the slave aristocracy were ranged
the other elements of society. First among these came the small
farmers, often owning a few slaves. Though having occupied the land
first, they were gradually crowded out by the competition of the large
slaveholders, who bought up their lands and forced them to occupy the
foothills to the north of the "black belt" in Georgia, Alabama and
Mississippi which were ill adapted to the plantation slave system.
Next came the thriftless and impecunious whites, variously known as
the "pine-landers" and "crackers" in Georgia, the "sand-hillers" of
South Carolina, or the "red-necks" of Mississip