USA HISTORY

The economy in the southern part if the United States was agricultural and relied on ____

(A) ** slave labor

(B) water power

(C) factories

Concept note-1: -Slavery was so profitable, it sprouted more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation. Their fuel of choice? Human slavery.

Concept note-2: -With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became the cash crop of the Deep South, stimulating increased demand for enslaved people from the Upper South to toil the land.

Concept note-3: -Although slavery was highly profitable, it had a negative impact on the southern economy. It impeded the development of industry and cities and contributed to high debts, soil exhaustion, and a lack of technological innovation.

Concept note-4: -The Confederate States of America (1861–1865) started with an agrarian-based economy that relied heavily on slave-worked plantations for the production of cotton for export to Europe and to the northern US.

Concept note-5: -Southern economy was dependent on slave labour because they grew labour intensive cash crops. The south was mainly dependent on agriculture and farming as the main economy, and to maintain large plantations and fields slave labour was needed.