11 This conclusion rests upon the same data used by Harriet and Frank Owlsley, as carefully reworked in Donald L. Winters, “‘Plain Folk” of the Old South Reexamined: Economic Democracy in Tennessee,” JSH 53 (1987), 565-86. As Winters himself points out, his own computations understate wealth concentration, and an attempt is made to refine them here. His data are limited to farm operators listed in the agricultural schedules of the Census of 1850. This source omitted many landless freemen who appeared in the population schedules of the census but not in the agricultural schedules. From the research of Blanche Clark, we know that, when they are included, landlessness in the eight Tennessee counties rises to 35% of the free population. Further, it also omits slaves as potential wealthowners, who made up 25% of the Tennessee population in 1850. These two large landless groups were a majority of the population. Without them Winters obtained a Gini ratio of .58 for improved acres. If they are included, the Gini ratio rises to .8, and even this estimate understates concentration, for the Census of 1850 missed many poor farmers, migrant farm laborers and squatters.

12 Charels C. Geisler et al., Who Owns Appalachia? (Lexington, Ky., 1983), 14; another study that obtained similar results is Lee Soltow, “Kentucky Wealth at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” JEH 43 (1963), 617-33.

13Ibid., 14-40.