Civil War: The Cotton Industry

The Columbian Exchange was the process of exchanging animals, agriculture, and diseases. The most important change that I believe occurred was the agriculture exchange. The old world introduced more tropical fruits than what was available as well as grains. They brought over cash crops such as sugar and coffee beans because in Europe those were the crops that were priced the highest. In fact, it was so lucrative to grow sugar in the Carribean, they imported all of their food out so they had more room to grow it.

One immediate consequence was that cotton production rose by nearly fifty times as Southern planters began processing their cotton with the gin. Additional improvements to the machine and the development of a large-scale factory version further spurred the rapid emergence of cotton as a profitable cash crop (Brain 60). Over the span of half a century, cotton production in the United States skyrocketed from four thousand bales in 1790 to over a million bales in 1840, an increase of over 250 times (“Cotton Kingdom” 75). By the 1840s, Southern cotton made up half of American exports and constituted about 60% of the world’s supply of cotton. In addition, cotton stimulated the national economy in multiple ways.

The Confederate

In American Colonies, Alan Taylor argues that “the sugar boom revolutionized the economy, landscape, demography and social structure of Barbados.” (p.210). Sugar became very important for everyone who grew it, especially in Barbados. By 1660, Barbados made the most sugar consumed by England. This made “more trade and capital than all other English colonies combined.”

After this invention, planters were given a new use for slavery, creating a boost in slave trade all together but especially from the South to the Southwest coast line. Cotton plantations grew and therefore so did the population of slaves. This now giant cotton economy was run solely on slave-labor. This gave Southerners

The most significant example was the the biggest export before Civil War,cotton business in the Deep South. Cotton was one of luxury commodities and it fed the textile revolution in the United States. Initially, cotton was planted in South and farmers had no way to distribute the cotton to other areas. When the railroads were bulit, it united rural farmers with distant ports and markets. All cottons that being grown in the Southern states can be moved either across the Atlantic Ocean to New England by steamboats or up into the American Northeast, where all the texile factoreis located.

The leading cause of the civil war was slavery. Slaves were bought and sold in the united states. Slavery had an important role in the united states. They were used to do most farm work. During that time period slaves made up 21.7% of the population(Carter, Susan).They were more populated in the south because the crops grew more in the south.

The southern colonies during this era developed a strong agriculture economy. The initial money making crops for the southern colonies were cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco. Cotton eventually became the big money making crop and major export to England, due to the ideal environmental conditions and large amount of land that was available after the Indians were relocated. Because of the large quantities of cotton that could be produced, the south had to expand its labor

The North was much stronger than the South. The North had a stronger and more stable economy. Besides owing large plantations and farming, The North controlled over 50 percent of the population, railroad mileage, iron/steel production, wealth, exports, and factories. Free states attracted and became home to the majority of European immigration.

In the 1700’s, the Northern and Southern regions of the United States had developed two distinct economies. In the South, large plantations and farms owned by wealthy men growing cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and indigo were responsible for the majority of the economy. These plantations and farms used slaves to substitute for the necessary labor as it was a much cheaper and more accessible alternative. Trade and business were predominantly conducted overseas with Great Britain and other European nations. Towards the North, however, people thrived off of a more diverse and industrial economy; some also worked as farmers, but more were merchants, bankers, and laborers who manufactured goods.