Anthony Parent lays out his argument for the influence of the “great planters” in the formation of a slave society in Virginia in the 1660s-1740s in Foul Means. Parent organizes his argument into a series of three main parts: Origins, Conflicts, and Reactions. The "Great Planters" were a small group of wealthy landowners who contributed heavily to the development of a slave society in Virginia through their social status, economic influence, and political influence. The first section of the book, Origins, describes how the “Great Planters” came to be. The section begins by detailing how planters obtained their land from Native Americans by taking it by force or purchasing it from them at a very low cost. ParentIn this section Parent examines the ways in which the "Great Planters" used their economic and social influence to establish laws that would alienate black slaves and dehumanize them. After a series of revolts led not only by black slaves, but also by a combination of poorer whites and black slaves, the “Great Planters” became quite scary. To avoid this they attempted to further separate the whites from the blacks hoping that the whites would not help with the slave revolts. To do this, the planters passed even more laws to reiterate the difference between slaves and whites. The chapter on class conflict examines the conflict between small, medium and large farmers. The large planters passed legislation that allowed them to remain the “Great Planters” and to confine the small and medium-sized planters to their estates. The first aspect of this was that the “Great Planters” exploited the concept of Patriarchism as a means of justifying the treatment of slaves. Planters spread this ideology which further separated whites from slaves and established the belief that slaves needed the “Great Planters” to control them. This is made evident in several ways, one of the most striking being that planters would control the reproduction of slaves. The next thing was to look at how being baptized affected slavery. The planters thought that converting to Christianity was good for the slaves and would help them maintain control over the slaves, however, the planters did not want the slaves to be freed just because they had converted to Christianity, so laws were passed preventing them from this would happen.