2.nounA small slaveholder, a person who owns a smallholding.""…planters and smallholders alike controlled far more than their equitable share of the political power and economic resources in their communities. Because small slaveholders aspired to be planters, they did not often align themselves with the political and economic interests of nonslaveholders." (Wilma P. Dunaway, Slavery in the American Mountain South: "Introduction" 9, 2003)"