How did the spread of cotton in the South affected slavery?

Answer 1

Cotton had to be picked by hand and had to be "combed" by hand as well to get the seeds out. It takes many, many cotton plants to produce one cotton garment. To be profitable, you need to grow a lot of cotton plants. Because slave work was free and you could feed them and house them as minimally as an owner wanted, plantations could be huge. The bigger the cotton plantation, the more slaves were needed. That's how the plantation grew. Plantations died off after the Civil War because they could not afford to pay those to do the same work as the slaves did for free. It was far too big an area and far too big a job.

Answer 2

Well, you would be right in saying that there wouldn't be as much wealth in the south, since it's two major crops wouldn't exist. Also, the South wouldn't have to be dependent on slavery. You could also bring up that, due to the lack of major crops, the South could actually 'urbanize' and build major commercial towns (such as in the north: Boston, Philadelphia). The outcome of the civil war could also be different, due to the south's more urban society. Just some ideas. Hope this helps! I would have to disagree with the answer above me (Blackzil...) because slavery existed in both the north and the south for a while. Due to the north's more urban society, the need for slaves became practically non- existant. The slaves that did exist were usually for households. The south, even without the crops, would still have slaves.

Answer 3

cotton became the main export of the south and the most profitable export. it made slavery even more required for the southern economy to survive. since harvesting cotton is very arduous, you'll needed a lot of labor. of coure the white folks will never ever do that, therefore you get slaves who are blacks to do the work. these black slaves became essential for having high cotton exports and for having the south to boom economically.

based all on economics of the south

Answer 4

Cotton became a primary industry in the South. Naturally, the landowners weren't going to pick it themselves, so they bought slaves to do the work.

Answer 5

Well now that Plant owners in the south had someway to make profit they needed a workforce, so they got slaves.

Answer 6

Affected - as in exaggerated, pretentious or artificial?? Affect or effect?
See johnny h.

Answer 7

it gave them a steady job--so much for dumb answers to dumb questions unless your 7 years old that was the reason for 90%of it

Answer 8

needed slaves to pick it