Poor Whites Still Do Not Understand They Are Pitted Against Others To Their Own Peril

As I pre­pared this arti­cle, I won­dered what per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion of white America even know this part of their history.

In the mid-17^th cen­tu­ry, the American colonies were grow­ing fast, but life for many was harsh. Thousands of poor whites, most­ly from England, came to the New World as inden­tured ser­vants. They worked the tobac­co, cot­ton, and rice plan­ta­tions of the wealthy planter class for years, hop­ing one day to gain their free­dom and start their own lives. But for many, that dream nev­er mate­ri­al­ized. After years of bru­tal labor, they were often left land­less, poor, and bit­ter, fac­ing a life no bet­ter than the one they had fled in Europe.

As the inden­tured whites grew resent­ful of the planter class, they real­ized that they weren’t the only ones liv­ing under harsh con­di­tions. Enslaved Africans were sub­ject­ed to unimag­in­able cru­el­ty, forced to labor end­less­ly under the whip with no hope of free­dom. At first, the poor whites and enslaved Blacks shared a com­mon ene­my: the wealthy landown­ers who con­trolled the colonies’ wealth and pow­er. The con­di­tions seemed ripe for a unit­ed front against the élite, but the planters feared such an alliance.

To pre­vent any sol­i­dar­i­ty between poor whites and enslaved Blacks, the planter class devised a shrewd strat­e­gy. They began to extend cer­tain legal and social priv­i­leges to poor whites, no mat­ter how low­ly their sta­tion. This was a cal­cu­lat­ed move to cre­ate a racial hier­ar­chy, offer­ing poor whites a sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty over enslaved Blacks. Laws were passed that restrict­ed the rights of Africans, while at the same time giv­ing even the poor­est white men the right to vote, bear arms, and own land — priv­i­leges denied to enslaved people.

The planters empha­sized racial dif­fer­ences, mak­ing white­ness a uni­fy­ing iden­ti­ty for all Europeans, regard­less of class. By stok­ing racial prej­u­dice, they suc­cess­ful­ly divid­ed poor whites from enslaved Blacks, ensur­ing that the two groups would view each oth­er with sus­pi­cion rather than rec­og­nize their shared inter­ests. Even when inden­tured servi­tude even­tu­al­ly fad­ed, the racial hier­ar­chy remained, embed­ding itself in the fab­ric of American society.

This divi­sion had pro­found and last­ing con­se­quences. Over time, poor whites came to iden­ti­fy more with the wealthy landown­ers than with the enslaved peo­ple they worked along­side. Racial sol­i­dar­i­ty trumped class sol­i­dar­i­ty, and the resent­ment that once flowed from poor whites to the planter class was redi­rect­ed toward Black peo­ple. The seeds of racial ten­sion were sown, a pow­er­ful tool the elites used to main­tain con­trol over both groups.

Centuries lat­er, the lega­cy of this manip­u­la­tion con­tin­ues to affect America. The racial divide that the planter class delib­er­ate­ly fos­tered has per­sist­ed, shap­ing pol­i­tics, soci­ety, and eco­nom­ics. From Jim Crow laws to mod­ern-day sys­temic racism, the lega­cy of this divide ensures that racial ani­mosi­ties over­shad­ow the real­i­ty that the eco­nom­ic strug­gles of work­ing-class peo­ple, regard­less of race, are often sim­i­lar. The fear of a unit­ed front between dif­fer­ent racial and eth­nic groups remains a pow­er­ful force in American pol­i­tics today.

The resent­ment that poor whites once felt toward the wealthy élite was divert­ed into racial prej­u­dice, and this has con­tin­ued to frac­ture the coun­try, allow­ing eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty to deep­en while racial ten­sion dis­tracts from shared strug­gles. The sto­ry of the inden­tured whites and the planter class is a reminder of how divi­sion can be used as a tool of con­trol and how the con­se­quences of such manip­u­la­tion can echo through the centuries.