Final answer:
The majority of white families in the antebellum South owned 5 to 10 slaves. Wealth was unequally distributed with only a small percentage of white people owning a large number of slaves, and two-thirds of the households not owning any at all.
Step-by-step explanation:
The majority of white families in the antebellum South owned D. 5 to 10 slaves. During this period, wealth in the South became increasingly unevenly distributed. Even though the South prospered and there were more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River Valley than anywhere else in the United States, statistics from 1860 indicate that only 3 percent of white people enslaved more than fifty people. Moreover, two-thirds of white households in the South did not enslave any people at all.
It is also important to note that the claims made by proponents of slavery about the alleged benefits to enslaved individuals are historically documented to have been deeply flawed rationalizations for a brutal system. The domestic slave trade, with its inhumane and disruptive forced relocations, significantly bolstered the Southern economy and was a pivotal aspect of the antebellum Southern society.