Why did cotton come to be known as king cotton in the early 1800s?

King Cotton was a phrase coined in the years before the Civil War to refer to the economy of the American South. The southern economy was particularly dependent on cotton. And, as cotton was very much in demand, both in America and Europe, it created a special set of circumstances.

Great profits could be made in cotton. But as most of the cotton was being picked by enslaved people, the cotton industry was essentially synonymous with slavery. And by extension the thriving textile industry, which was centered on mills in northern states as well as in England, was linked to the institution of American slavery.

When the banking system of the United States was rocked by financial panics, the cotton-based economy of the South was at times immune to the problems.

Following the Panic of 1857, a South Carolina senator, James Hammond, taunted politicians from the North during a debate in the U.S. Senate: "You dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it.

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