Dominion and other slave-dense areas of the Old South also forestalled the emergence of a feared potential alliance between Blacks and the worst off of the whites, many of whom had recently been indentured servants. As Gordon-Reed observes, “Instead, poor whites, encouraged by the policies of the elites, took refuge in their whiteness and the dream that one day they, too, could become slave owners” in the western parts of the country that were just opening up.
