Plantation Society and Race Relations: The Origins of Inequality

For more than three hundred years, the American South was essentially a plantation society, in which the plantation system penetrated all aspects of social, cultural, economic, and political life. During this period, plantation slavery evolved into the key institutional component of Southern society and played an integral role in its development. This interdisciplinary collection of essays provides a sociological framework for the interpretation of historical data on plantation slavery by addressing different questions concerning four broad areas of research--theoretical perspectives; social institutions; race, gender, and social inequality; and social change and social transformations. The contributors depict slave plantations as organized social systems that contributed significantly to the racial stratification of the Southern plantation society, and in this way served as the origin of contemporary race relations and social inequality in America.

THOMAS J. DURANT, JR. is Professor of Sociology and Director of African and African American Studies at Louisiana State University. His research and teaching interests include Southern culture, international development, and ethnic minorities. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters.

J. DAVID KNOTTNERUS is Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. His interests include theory, social structure and inequality, social psychology, and group processes. He has published extensively in journals and is the coeditor ofRecent Developments in the Theory of Social Structure (with Christopher Prendergast, 1994).