United States History Student Edition

South became a center for the sale and transport of enslaved people. This practice became known as the domestic slave trade . 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING 1. Identifying Cause and Effect What effect did the cotton gin have on the South’s economy? 2. Describing How did the Deep South and the Upper South differ in terms of the crops they produced? Southern Industry GUIDING QUESTION Why did industry develop slowly in the South? Industry developed more slowly in the South than in the North, but why was this so? One reason was the boom in cotton. Agriculture, especially cotton farming, produced great profits. Yet building new industry was costly. Planters would have had to sell enslaved people or land to raise the money they would need to build factories. Instead, they chose to invest in profitable agriculture, which included the practice of enslaving Africans. In addition, the market for manufactured goods in the South was small. Enslaved people, who made up a large share of the population, had no money to buy goods. This limited local market discouraged industries from developing. For these reasons, some white Southerners simply did not want industry. One Texas politician, Louis Wigfall, summed up that Southern point of view: “ We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no cities—we don’t want them. We have no literature—we don’t need any yet. We have no press—we are glad of it. . . . We have no commercial marine—no navy—we don’t want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures: we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want. . . . But with the Yankees we will never trade—never. Not one pound of cotton shall ever go from

the South to their accursed cities; not one ounce of their steel or their manufactures shall ever cross our border. ” –Louis Wigfall to William Howard Russell, 1861 Some Southern leaders wanted to develop industry in the region. They thought that the South depended too much on the North for manufactured goods. “ At present, the North fattens and grows rich upon the South. We depend upon it for our entire supplies. We purchase all our luxuries and necessaries from the North. . . . With us, every branch and pursuit in life, every trade, profession, and occupation is dependent upon the North. ” —Huntsville Advocate , April 6, 1849

Cotton Production as a Percentage of U.S. Exports, 1800–1860 Cotton’s role in the economy of the South—and the nation—increased in the 1800s. Cotton Production as a Percentage of U.S. Exports

1800

1820

7.1%

32%

1840

1860

51.6%

57.5%

Source: Historical Statistics of the United States

ECONOMICS CONNECTION 1. Calculating How did cotton’s share of the U.S. export market change between 1800 and 1860? 2. Inferring How do you think increases in cotton production affected the demand for enslaved labor? Explain.

domestic slave trade the trade of enslaved people among states of the United States

(1)Wigfall, Louis T. Quoted in My Diary North and South, by William Howard Russell. T.O.H.P. Burnham, New York, 1863; (2)Barnard, Frederick Augustus Porter. Quoting an Alabama newspaper in “An Oration Delivered Before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Ala., July 4th, 1851.” Tuscaloosa: J.W. & J.F. Warren, 1851.

Life in the North and the South 379