Chapter 11 Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South

The Cotton Economy Much of the upper South continued in the 19 th century to rely on the cultivation of tobacco. However this was not stable and in 1820 in the 1850s a depression in prices occurred. Tobacco also exhausted the land so many had to move a lot to be able to continue to be able to grow the crop. By the 1830s, therefore many farmers in the old tobacco- growing regions of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina were shifting to other crops notably wheat. South Carolina, Georgia and parts of Florida continued to grow rice, a more stable crop and lucrative.

The Rise of King Cotton Rice takes 9 months to grow though and needs a lot of irrigation so it couldn’t be grown everywhere. Sugar growers were along the Gulf Coast and enjoyed a good profit. However, it take a long time to grow and is also very labor intensive so only the very wealthy could afford to grow it. Usually this was grown in Louisiana and eastern Texas. These reasons contributed to a new crop in the 19 th century to emerge which was short- staple cotton. The demand for cotton was growing as the textile industry in England and here in the US was growing.

The Rise of King Cotton By 1850s cotton was the linchpin to the Southern economy. In Alabama, Mississippi, Louisana, Texas, and Arkansas. In 1820 the South was producing 500,00 bales of cotton. By 1850 it grew to 3 million and by million. It did have booms and busts during this time but overall it kept growing.By the time of the Civil War constituted 2/3rds of US exports and bringing in about $200 million a year. Rice was only bringing in 2million. Hence why Southern politicians would call cotton king.

The Rise of Cotton Cotton production dominated the more recently settled areas of what came to be known as the “lower South” that we call the “deep South” today. Many called this region “Cotton Kingdom”. People started to flood to this area for the opportunity to hit it rich. Between 1820 and 1860 the number of slaves in Alabama leaped from 41,000 to 435,000 and in Mississippi from 32,000 to 436,000. Between 1840 and 1860 it is estimated that 410,000 slaves moved from the upper South to the cotton states. Most of them were sold and this helped the upper South planters who were struggling to make money.

Southern Trade and Industry Due to this growing demand the business classes of the region the manufacturers and merchants were not unimportant. The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, for example, compared favorably with the best iron mills in the Northeast. The total value of southern textile manufacturers in 1860 was $4.5 million a threefold increase over the value of those goods twenty years before, but only 2% of the value of the raw cotton exported that year. Particularly important were the brokers, or “factors,” live who marked the planter’s crops.

Southern Trade and Industry These merchants lived in towns as New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah, where they worked to find buyers for cotton and other crops and where they purchased goods for the planters they served. The primitive character of the region’s banking system matched a lack of development in other basic services and structures necessary for industrial development. Perhaps most notable was the South’s inadequate transportation system. Canals were almost nonexistent; most roads were crude and unsuitable for heavy transport; and railroads, although they expanded substantially in the 1840s and 1850s failed to tie the region together effectively.

Southern Trade and Industry Most of the South, however, remained unconnected to the national railroad system. Most lines in the region were short and local. The principle means of transportation was water. The most prominent advocate of southern economic independence was James B.D. De Bow, a resident of New Orleans. He published a magazine advocating southern commercial and agricultural expansion, De Bow’s Review, which survived from its founding in 1846 until The De Bow Review was itself evidence of the dependency of the South and North.