The Economics of Cotton

About this episode

This episode explores the economic significance of cotton production in the pre-Civil War South and its reliance on slavery.

In the years before the Civil War, the South produced the bulk of the world’s supply of cotton. The Mississippi River Valley slave states became the epicenter of cotton production, an area of frantic economic activity where the landscape changed dramatically as land was transformed from pinewoods and swamps into cotton fields. Cotton’s profitability relied on the institution of slavery, which generated the product that fueled cotton mill profits in the North. When the international slave trade was outlawed in 1808, the domestic slave trade exploded, providing economic opportunities for White people involved in many aspects of the trade and increasing the possibility of enslaved people’s dislocation and separation from kin and friends. Although the larger American and Atlantic markets relied on southern cotton in this era, the South depended on these other markets for food, manufactured goods, and loans. Thus, the market revolution transformed the South just as it had other regions. All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/12-1-the-economics-of-cotton Welcome to A Journey into Human History. This podcast will attempt to tell…

People in this episode

Host: Miranda Casturo

Topics covered

• cotton production
• slavery
• economic history
• market revolution
• American South
• domestic slave trade

Keywords

• cotton
• slavery
• Mississippi River Valley
• economic activity
• market revolution
• domestic slave trade
• American history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: OpenStax

Places: South, Mississippi River Valley

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