The Reconstruction of the Plantation Household: Southern Planter Families from Slavery to Segregation

FAIN: FT-54708-06

John C. Rodrigue
Louisiana State University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001)

This project examines the transformation of relations within planter families in the U.S. South as a result of emancipation. Because slavery shaped all social institutions and relations in antebellum southern society, the abolition of slavery necessitated a redefinition of relations not only between ex-slaveholders and ex-slaves, but also among the members of ex-slaveholding families. It also forced a reconstitution of basic definitions of self and identity within th efamily. Much scholarship considers how emancipation recast relations between former slaveholders and ex-slaves, and even between whites of different social classes, but less attention has been devoted to how emancipation reshaped relations within ex-slaveholding families.