“met people who had owned slaves and maintained their wealth from slavery”.
NOT possible after the WAR was lost, and all slaves were emancipated for real for the entire country, and the individuals turned out to the world of public and private commerce— to look for and work for paid employment!
The landed wealthy of the South no longer had FREE (not paid by them) employment. If they still owned workable commodities properties- agriculture/vegetables for example— they had to pay for the labor of working the land. Using what credit they could obtain from a Land Bank that would advance them operational funds. NO- they by and large did not build on their wealth. They lost it, and paid for it in fines and retribution from federal interlocutors enforcing penalties through the occupying forces (the last having left GA in 1878 as a result of the Compromise of 1877 of the 1876 Presidential Election of Rutherford Hayes vs. Democrat Tilden with a “deal” over the fact that neither had a majority of Electoral votes).
A lot of former slaves stayed on the owners land and share cropped. Many former owners were surprised how much better it was for them relieving them of cradle to grave responsibility.
After the war my ancestors wound up down in south Texas living in a thatched hut working as cowboys on someone else’s ranch. They were cowboys for the next several generations.
Neat people, but certainly not rich.