Answer:
The correct answer is D. Most of the slaves were owned by relatively few slave owners.
Step-by-step explanation:
The United States had, from independence until the Civil War, a long history of slavery. Especially in the south, slavery was a fundamental basis of its social, economic and political organization, since the agricultural production of the region (the economic and cultural engine of the south) was based on the exploitation of slaves by landowners who planted cotton and tobacco on their farms.
Thus, more than 4 million African American slaves were based in the south, working for these landowners. Although the land was distributed more or less equitably (since there were no large estates but rather were farms of reasonable proportions), many of these landowners had a privileged business and economic position, with which they could buy and maintain larger amounts of land. slaves, while others had to farm their own land with their families. Therefore, although there were a high number of slaves in the territory, these were not distributed equally among white landowners, but were owned only by the richest.