Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The planter aristocracy was made up of ten thousand families that owned fifty or more slaves apiece. These were the people who, as the former North Carolina slave William Yancey recalled, gave shape to the government and tone to the society. #2The planter elite was made up of about fifty southern planters, who each owned at least five hundred slaves. The richest planter in North Carolina was Thomas P. Devereux, the father of Catherine Devereux Edmondston, who owned more than one thousand people. #3 The southern states were extremely wealthy, and their planters had political power that extended far beyond their own states. #4 The South's laboring population was made up of four million slaves, who provided the core of the region's economy. They worked in all sectors of the society and economy, from the small urban economy to the fields.