Third, many
yeomen and small farmers with a few slaves were linked to elite planters through the market economy. In many areas, small farmers depended on local planter elites for vital goods and services, including access to
cotton gins, markets, feed and livestock, and even loans (since the banking system was not well developed in the antebellum South). Southern tradesmen often depended on the richest planters for steady work. Such dependency effectively deterred many white non-slaveholders from engaging in any political activity that was not in the interest of the large slaveholders.
