King Cotton

1. Cotton, Slavery, and the Old SOuth King Cotton

2. Bellwork “The South grew, but it did not develop.” What do you think the historian who wrote this meant?

3. Decline of Tobacco • Most of the “upper South” depended on tobacco • The market for tobacco was very unstable • Tobacco exhausted soil rapidly • By the 1830s, much of the “upper South” switched to wheat production

4. Short-Staple Cotton • This variety of cotton was stronger and coarser than other varieties previously grow in the South • It also survived in a variety of climates and soils • It was far more difficult to process, but the cotton gin essentially solved that problem • As the textile industry grew with industrialization, demand for cotton also grew • This caused cotton production to spread rapidly throughout the South

5. Spread of Cotton Production • Production started along the southeast coast and moved rapidly westward • By the 1850s, cotton dominated the southern economy • By 1860, the South was producing 10 times as much cotton as it had in 1820 • By the time of the Civil War, “King Cotton” accounted for nearly 2/3 of the total exports of the United States • The prospects of fortunes in cotton led white settlers to the “Deep South” by the thousands

6. Expansion of Slavery • Between 1840 and 1860, more than 400,000 slaves moved from the “upper South” to the “lower South” • Some moved with their masters • Some were sold to planters already there • While slave populations grew dramatically in the “lower South,” populations either grew slightly or declined in the “upper South”