I am casting a film where one of the characters is a man whose
great-grandparents owned a plantation in the pre-Civil War South.  On
this plantation many slaves died or lost limbs while dredging a swamp
and digging a canal.

The actor we have in mind for the role is of Mediteranean Jewish
descent and he has a NY accent.  Such is Hollywood.

So, here is my question:

Were there any Jewish plantation owners?  If so, how rare or common a
thing was this?  And I am assuming that these were largely cotton
plantations, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Hello.

Yes, there were some Jewish plantation owners. The Jewish population
of the antebellum South was very small, though, and research indicates
that Jewish plantation owners were very few in number.

According to the recent book, "The Jewish Confederates," the entire
Jewish population of the South in 1860 was only 25,000. Furthermore,
"very few" Jewish Southerners were slaveholders or planters.
 See the entry at Amazon.com:
"The Jewish Confederates" by Robert N. Rosen
(University of South Carolina Press, 2000)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570033633/

I used Amazon's "look inside" feature to read some excerpts from Mr
Rosen's book. Here is some information that seems directly relevant to
your question:

"...Jewish Southerners from Virginia to Texas weighed their devotion
to the Union and to their states. Some were the sons and daughters -
indeed the grandsons and granddaughters - of Southerners born and bred
in Dixie. Some were slaveholders. A very few were planters."

source: Chapter 1, "The Jewish Confederates," by Robert N. Rosen. 
Excerpt scanned by Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570033633/

Thus, Mr Rosen's statement that "very few were planters" suggests that
Jewish plantation owners did exist, but they were not common. Indeed,
in an Associated Press article about his book, Rosen is quoted as
follows:

"...Because most Jews were merchants, small farmers, peddlers, doctors
or lawyers, Rosen says, relatively few actually owned plantations --
or slaves."
source:
"Book tells of Jews in Civil War" 
By Bill Hendrick Associated Press
Florida Times Union Jacksonville, Sunday, January 14, 2001, posted to
a newsgroups, archived by Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3A76B4F3.3AC99884%40bellsouth.net


I'd personally recommend that you seek out Mr Rosen's book for
additional details.


Additonal source:

Part of a recent exhibit at the College of Charleston (South Carolina)
explored "the unusual history of Jewish plantation owners."

The exhibit was called "A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years
of Southern Jewish Life."
Source: College of Charleston:
http://www.cofc.edu/~jhc/portion/walkthru.html
The exhibit's companion book to the exhibit undoubtedly contains
relevant details.
A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life
(2002)
by Theodore Rosengarten et al.
See the entry at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570034451/

---------------

Although cotton was a main cash crop in the antebellum South, the idea
that all (or even most) Southern plantations produced cotton is
apparently not accurate.

From the essay "Debunking Myths About Southern Research":

"Most 'plantations' were, in fact, much smaller entities. Any farming
enterprise consisting of an owner/operator and group of resident
laborers could be classified a plantation. Not all such entities were
cotton farms either. Southern crops included tobacco, rice, corn,
indigo, wheat, flax, peanuts, sweet potatoes, hardwood timber, pine
(for wood, tar and pitch), peaches, apples, berries, and vegetables of
all sorts."
source: Debunking Myths About Southern Research, hosted by
ancestry.com
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/george/4271.asp

----------

search strategy:
"jewish plantation", "jewish plantations",
"jewish southerners", history

I hope this helps.

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 22 Oct 2003 17:52 PDT

Sorry for that typo:
"The companion book to the exhibit..."

thank you, very good answer -- very much appreciated.

Regarding the use of a Mediterranean Jewish actor with a New York
accent in the role of a plantation owner, stranger things have
happened in the movies.

Let us not forget that John Wayne once played Genghis Kahn. ;-)

Oops. Typo. John Wayne played Genghis KHAN, not Kahn. I must have been
thinking of Genghis's younger sister, Madeline. :-D

peh:
Thank you very much for the tip.
-juggler