United States History Student Edition

05 Southern Cotton Kingdom

Rise of the Cotton Kingdom GUIDING QUESTION

READING STRATEGY Analyzing Key Ideas and Details Read carefully to determine the reasons cotton production grew but industrial growth was slow in the South. Record those reasons in a diagram like this one. Why was cotton “king”?

How were the economies of the South and the North different? In the early years of the United States, the South had an economy based almost entirely on farming. Most Southerners lived in the Upper South, an area along the Atlantic coast in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. A few people had also settled in Georgia and South Carolina. Southern Agriculture By 1850, the South had changed. Its population had spread inland to the Deep South. This region included Georgia and South Carolina, as well as Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The economy of the South was thriving. That economy depended, however, on slavery. In fact, slavery had grown stronger than ever in the South, while it had all but disappeared in the Northern states. One writer described the boom as cotton planting spread farther and farther west: “ A new El Dorado had been discovered; fortunes were made in a day, without enterprise or work; and unexampled prosperity seemed to cover the land as with a golden canopy—forests were swept away in a week; labor came in crowds to the South to produce cotton; and where yesterday the wilderness darkened over the land with her wild forests, to-day the cotton plantation whitened the earth. ” –from The Memories of Fifty Years , by W. H. Sparks, 1870 In colonial times, Southern planters grew mainly rice, indigo, and tobacco. After the American Revolution, demand for these crops decreased. European mills now wanted Southern cotton.

Cotton

Industry

FLORIDA BENCHMARKS

• SS.8.A.1.2 • SS.8.A.4.5 • SS.8.A.4.10 • SS.8.E.1.1 • SS.8.E.2.2 • SS.8.E.2.3 • SS.8.E.3.1 • SS.8.G.1.1 • SS.8.G.1.2 • SS.8.G.2.1 • SS.8.G.2.3 • SS.8.G.3.1 • SS.8.G.4.4 • SS.8.G.4.5 • SS.8.G.5.2 • SS.8.G.6.1 • SS.8.G.6.2

• ELA.K12.EE.3.1 • ELA.K12.EE.4.1 • ELA.K12.EE.5.1 • ELA.K12.EE.6.1

This lithograph from 1884 by Currier and Ives shows life on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. What do you think the perspective of the artist would be?

PHOTO: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-pga-00675]; TEXT: Sparks, William Henry. 1870. The Memories of Fifty Years : Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring During a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest. Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia. Pg. 364.

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