In the Antebellum South (1815–1861), the planter class ensured a rigid, hierarchical society. Small farmers, or Yeomen, white workers, and poor whites made up seventy-five percent of the white population, but the wealthy planters controlled everything else. This produced significant economic and social tensions between the two classes.

Young Southern Belles who married into another elite plantation family assumed the role of plantation mistress, often as young as 18–20. Even though accustomed to plantation life, they found transitioning to the role of plantation mistress difficult. As their own diaries reveal, beneath the surface of privilege lay a private world of isolation, exhaustion, and quiet misery.

The Battle of Arfderydd took place in 573 and was one of the most pointless and destructive disputes of the 6th Century.