Final answer:
While the exact percentage is not provided, plantation owners who comprised only 10% of the South's population controlled a disproportionate amount of the region's wealth due to their dominance in the cotton industry and the practice of slavery. The elite planter class acted as an economic and political aristocracy and represented a concentration of wealth and power that characterized the antebellum South's social hierarchy.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question pertains to the distribution of wealth among plantation owners in the South before the Civil War. In the antebellum South, wealth was highly concentrated: an ever-smaller percentage of white southern society, particularly the planter elite, controlled a significant portion of the region's wealth through the production of cotton and the enslavement of African Americans. Notably, the textile industry's demand for cotton bolstered the wealth and power of these few, and by the 1850s, slaves produced 75% of the world's cotton solely for the benefit of this privileged class. Despite making up just 10% of the population, plantation owners possessed a disproportionate amount of wealth, creating a stark imbalance in social and economic power within southern society.
Understanding the concentration of wealth among plantation owners requires a look at both the economic structure and the social hierarchy of the time. The planter elite consisted of both an aristocratic gentry in the Upper South and newly wealthy slaveholders in the Deep South. These included individuals like Nathaniel Heyward, who came from established families and were at the pinnacle of wealth. The gap between the wealthy plantation owners and the rest of the white population, including yeoman farmers and landless whites, was vast. Although exact percentages cannot be easily ascertained from the provided information, it is clear from the historical context that the top echelons controlled the majority of wealth in the South. This system cemented their political power and perpetuated the institution of slavery as the foundation of their wealth and social standing.