Dave, you make me wish that I remembered all the books I read in my Southern History class in college. Even being from the south I was unaware of a lot of the society before the war. That is due a lot to media interpretations making everything 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (written, by the way, by a woman who not only did not live in the south but had never even been in a slave state). Turns out that a good number of slave owners where actually Northern professionals, doctors & lawyers, who'd earned enough money to buy a small plantation as a status symbol (Ferraris hadn't been invented yet) and hired someone to run it in their absence.

One I do remember is called 'The Barber of Natchez'. It's about a slave who was given his freedom (because the guy who owned him was most likely his daddy), learned the trade of a barber, and opened his own shop in Natchez, Mississippi. He opened up several more businesses, became very popular in the town, and became a land and slave owner himself.

The guy who taught the class had written a couple of books based off of diaries and letters from plantation owners, foremen, and even slaves. I know that he was working on a big one when I took his class about the elite slave owners (250 or more). His name is William K. Scarborough.

whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

Our Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said: "no, the doctor's right. besides, he has seniority."