The diaries and journals of slaveholders afford the opportunity to gain an intimate glimpse into the mindset and behavior of that group. These accounts are intriguing due to their private disposition at the time their authors composed them. Based on the content, masters viewed their own writings as a chance to be frank and straightforward about the realities of slave ownership, as opposed to the published articles that would be widely read across the area. Landon Carter, James Henry Hammond, and others offer commentaries on slave ownership that touch upon common themes across a few decades and presented unique perspectives on direct interactions with master and slave and the fear of slavery being eliminated. Slaveholders used their pages as an opportunity to describe the tensions they felt on a daily basis with the attempted control of their slaves, in addition to the uneasiness of their social position with a wary eye towards the future.
Studies of notorious masters from the South, men who thrived under the culture of honor, illustrate how violence and honor molded black-white interaction. Rhys Isaac’s analysis of Landon Carter, a Virginia planter during the revolutionary period, depicts a man with an abhorrence to all types of
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Slavery and agriculture went hand in hand throughout history but were especially connected during the antebellum period with the increase of sectional tension. Some slaveholders became preoccupied with the fear of slavery being eliminated. This differed greatly from the view presented by James Henry Hammond, depicting the strength of the South, concealing any vulnerability he felt at that time from the public eye. However, when masters wrote in private, their fear of lacking authority over slaves in the present as well as in the future becomes much more