Аннотация

The antebellum South permanently provokes the debate among historians. Was the Southern society a farm or a plantation, capitalist or “pre-bourgeous” as Eugene D. Genovese called it? Was the Southern planter an aristocrat or Yankee? The author considers Southern slaveholders, their life stile, views and fate on their diaries, memoirs and others papers to answer these questions. The main thesis is that dualism and contradiction of the region influenced on slaveholders. They were different and not a planter but a farmer with some slaves was typical. The Southern slaveholder was first of all a product of the Protestant ethics and rationalism although plantation slavery brought some traditional traits and values (paternalism, caste, the code of honor).