Chapter 11

Quiz for Document 11-1: Susan Dabney Smedes, Memorials of a Southern Planter (1887)

Reader Quiz

Chapter 11a

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Question 1

Susan Dabney Smedes’s reminiscences of her father, Thomas Dabney, in Memorials of a Southern Planter emphasizes his role as an aristocratic plantation master known for the lavish gatherings at which he entertained many locals including “his former overseer and other plain neighbors.” Wealthy southern planters like Dabney conducted these social events in order toA. enrich the meager diets and culture of poor whites.
B. display their wealth and social preeminence.
C. thank non-slaveholding whites for their services.
D. show northern critics that they were benevolent.

Question 2

Smedes’s description of her father and his administration of his Mississippi plantation in the 1850s suggests that the institution of slavery was which of the following?A. Paternalistic
B. A necessary evil
C. A chattel principle
D. Morally questionable

Question 3

Smedes takes great care to portray her father’s enslaved African Americans as beingA. grateful and loyal.
B. intelligent and ambitious.
C. simple and ignorant.
D. sullen and resentful.