Friday, February 3, 2012

What were north California plantations like in the 1800's?

I'm writing a story that takes place in the 1800's, but I know barely anything about the 1800's. was there slavery then? If so, was it common in Sacramento, California, where my story takes place? If not, what was racism like there? I need to know as much as possible about racism in central California in the 1800's.What were north California plantations like in the 1800's?
Don't you know how to google?





In the American South, antebellum plantations were centered on a "plantation house", the residence of the owner, where important business was conducted. Slavery and plantations had different characteristics in different regions of the South. In the Upper South, which developed first, historians have defined planters as those who held 20 or more slaves. The majority of slaveholders held 10 or fewer slaves, often just a few to labor domestically. By the late 18th century, most planters in the Upper South had switched from exclusive tobacco cultivation to mixed crop production.



There was a variety of domestic architecture on plantations. The largest and wealthiest planter families, for instance, those with estates fronting on the James River in Virginia, constructed mansions in brick and Georgian style, e.g. Shirley Plantation. Common or smaller planters in the late 18th and 19th century had more modest wood frame buildings, such as Southall Plantation in Charles City County.



In the Low Country of South Carolina, by contrast, even before the American Revolution, planters holding large rice and cotton plantations in South Carolina typically owned hundreds of slaves. In Charleston and Savannah, the elite held slaves to work as household servants. The 19th century development of the Deep South for cotton cultivation depended on large plantations with much more acreage than was typical of the Chesapeake Bay area, and for labor planters held hundreds of slaves.



Definition of "planter" with regard to slavery

Until December 1865 slavery was legal in parts of the United States. Most slaves were employed in agriculture, and “planter” was a term commonly used to describe a farmer with many slaves.



The term “planter” has no universally accepted definition. Citizens of the antebellum U.S. South themselves used the term loosely. In the Black Belt counties of Alabama and Mississippi, the terms “planter” and “farmer” were often synonymous. Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman define large planters as owning over fifty slaves, and medium planters as owning between sixteen and fifty slaves. In his study of Black Belt counties in Alabama, Jonathan Wiener defines planters by ownership of real property, rather than of slaves. A planter, for Wiener, owned at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of real estate in 1850 and thirty-two thousand dollars’ worth in 1860, equivalent to about the top 8 percent of landowners. In his study of southwest Georgia, Lee Formwalt also defines planters in size of land holdings rather than slaves. Formwalt’s planters are in the top 4.5 percent of landowners, translating into real estate worth six thousand dollars or more in 1850, twenty-four thousand dollars or more in 1860, and eleven thousand dollars or more in 1870. In his study of Harrison County, Texas, Randolph B. Campbell classifies large planters as owners of twenty slaves, and small planters as owners of between ten and nineteen slaves. In Chicot and Phillips Counties, Arkansas, Carl H. Moneyhon defines large planters as owners of twenty or more slaves, and six hundred or more acres.What were north California plantations like in the 1800's?
There were no plantations in north California.



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