Let it first be said that the antebellum life that we all seem to remember was about 90% fiction and 10% memory. Only the richest planters and entrepreneurs could afford to live like Scarlet O’Hara. As we well know, the majority of the white South did not even own slaves, just owned the ideal of slavery. Life was hard, even if you were well off. Everyone worked, even the farm or ranch owner and his wife. That being said, read on.

A brief survey of Southern farms by 1860 showed ownership in Texas skewed. There were 37,000 farms in Texas at this time, and most of them were between 20 and 49 acres. That was 14,000 farms. For those of you who do not know, that is not a very large farm. People in this farming class were lucky to own even one slave, and were often seen as well off if they had one. Should a man own a slave, he and his wife and even children probably worked right along with the slave. The next highest class was a farm of 50 to 99 acres, with 21% of the land, and almost 8000 farms. The true planter class has more land that this. The next class up may take of 30% of Mississippi, but only 185 of Texas. That is 6500 or so farms. This class included farms of 100 to 499 acres, a large spread. In reality, any farm or ranch above 200 acres was a scarcity. Only 1.3% of Texas farms spread out to 999 acres, and .2% were the true sprawling plantations that we picture in the antebellum Texas. For the record, none of these numbers include farms smaller than 3 acres. That leaves quite a few scratch farmers out.

That means that very few Texan homes had need of more than one or two in forced servitude. About 80% of white Texans did not own slaves. The number that owned 20 was about as much as those in sprawling 1000 acre farms. 20 was a very important number as the war called for conscriptions. If a man owned 20 slaves, he could be counted exempt for the longest time because he was needed to keep a firm hand on his possessions. That did not stop a lot of men, and the idea of overseers became very popular as many landowners did not see their wives as capable of managing slaves without them. But that is in another page.

For a closer look at life in the old Texas, let me direct you to one of the following rooms in Tucoxi’s internet house:

1. Sit on the front porch and discus race relations in pre-war Texas,
2. Enter the parlor to learn about decorating,
3. Sit in the master’s study to remember when ‘Cotton was King,’
4. Peek in the bedroom for a lesson in relationships,
5. Go out to the kitchen to learn about community relationships, and then
6. Go out to the airing cupboard to learn great recipes from Antebellum and Civil War Texas.