What was the society of south circa 1840?

Question

I was doing some flash cards for us history and this was one of the vocab terms. I couldn't find anything about it in my textbook, notes, and met a similar difficulty while trying to look for it on the internet.

Answer 1

The Southern society was much stratified. At the top you had the large plantation owners and their families. Beneath them were small farmers and at the bottom were slaves.