In the United States, yeomen were identified in the 18th and 19th centuries as non-slaveholding, small landowning, family farmers. In areas of the Southern United States where land was poor. The landowning yeomen were typically subsistence farmers, but some managed to grow crops for market. Whether they engaged in subsistence or commercial agriculture, they controlled far more modest landholdings than those of the plantation owners, typically in the range of 50–200 acres. In the Northern United States, practically all the farms were operated by yeoman farmers as family farms.
Thomas Jefferson was a leading advocate of the yeomen, arguing that the independent farmers formed the basis of republican values. Indeed, the Jeffersonian Republicans as a political force was largely built around the yeomen.