"New Masters: Northern Planters during the Civil War and Reconstruction, analyzes the North's efforts to transform the South, both during and after the war, into a free labor economy and society. In this study, Lawrence N. Powell addresses the role that the twenty to fifty thousand "new masters," or northern planters, had on the post-Reconstruction system.

Examining the records of over five hundred northern planters, Powell asserts that northern emigrants provided much of the capital that hard-pressed southern planters used to stave off bankruptcy, thus helping to perpetuate the plantation system of servitude and debt. But at the same time, these planters also provided the catalyst for revitalization of the South."--BOOK JACKET.

"New Masters deals with a variety of issues, including race relations, as well as northern planters motivations, work habits, capital investment patterns, and their gradual disillusionment as problems mounted and profits declined."--BOOK JACKET.