The most ruthless of the Old Southwestern landowners was the wealthy South Carolinian Wade Hampton. From humble beginnings as the son of a small tobacco farmer, by 1799 Hampton had accumulated land that produced cotton worth $90,000. By 1807 his farm yielded 1,500 bales. He was an inveterate land speculator whose grasp eventually reached into Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In 1811 he managed to put down a slave rebellion in which 60 of 50 slaves were killed. He “ordered ‘strung aloft’ on poles” twenty heads of the rebels.