How would the production of cotton affect the growth of slavery? (Why would there be more slaves?)

Explanation:

During the early nineteenth century, as the Market Revolution transformed the American economy of the North and West, the South was undergoing a different transformation.

For nearly two centuries, southern plantations had focused on producing tobacco, rice, and sugar for national and international markets. Tobacco quickly exhausted the soil, as did cotton, which was so time-consuming to process that it was hardly profitable as a cash crop. In the late 1700s, when enthusiasm for liberty was high and profits from slavery were low, some observers predicted that the institution would soon die out altogether in the United States.

But in 1850, contrary to those predictions, slavery was very much alive and well—in fact, there were more enslaved people living in the United States than ever before, and the cotton they produced accounted for more than half the value of US exports. Instead of following the path toward extinction, the institution of slavery thrived and expanded in the first half of the nineteenth century.

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