Plantations produced political ideology as well as commodities

Evidence

The plantations that dotted the landscape of the antebellum South produced the commodities that fueled the nation’s early growth. But plantations didn’t just produce goods; they produced ideas, too. Enslaved laborers developed an understanding of the society in which they lived. The people who enslaved them, likewise, constructed elaborate sets of beliefs, customs, and ideologies meant to justify their positions in this economic and social hierarchy. Those ideas permeated the entire South, taking deepest root in places where slavery was most entrenched. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 626

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Produced ideas’ gives the causal mechanism by which the plantation became foundational to American political culture rather than merely an economic sector.