What did the Southern economy depend on the most?
The Southern economy was almost entirely based on farming. Rice, indigo, tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton were cash crops. Crops were grown on large plantations where slaves and indentured servants worked the land. What type of economy did the colonies have?
What best describes the Southern economy?
The southern economy was tied to a culture that celebrated the wealth of planters and viewed slavery as a benevolent institution. While the agricultural economy of the Northeast had declined, that of the South was booming.
What did the southern colonies base their economy on?
The southern colonies' economy was based on agriculture (farming). The cash crops of the southern colonies included cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo (a plant that was used to create blue dye). In Virginia and Maryland, the main cash crop was tobacco.
Was slavery expensive or profitable for the Southern economy?
Slavery was so profitable, it sprouted more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation. Their fuel of choice? Human slavery.
What was the economy of the southern states based on?
The Confederate States of America (1861–1865) started with an agrarian-based economy that relied heavily on slave-worked plantations for the production of cotton for export to Europe and to the northern US.
What did the Southern economy focus on?
The northern economy relied on manufacturing and the agricultural southern economy depended on the production of cotton.
What did the South depend on?
The South relied on slavery heavily for economic prosperity and used wealth as a way to justify enslavement practices.
What was a characteristic of the Southern economy?
The Southern economy was almost entirely based on farming. Rice, indigo, tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton were cash crops. Crops were grown on large plantations where slaves and indentured servants worked the land.
What did the South use for transportation?
Steamboats, which moved across rivers and a network of canals built in the first half of the century, were a cheaper and faster way to transport large amounts of supplies, humans, and animals. Railroads, which developed rapidly after 1830, were also widely used by the Union and the Confederacy military forces.
How did southern economy change after civil war?
After the Civil War, sharecropping and tenant farming took the place of slavery and the plantation system in the South. Sharecropping and tenant farming were systems in which white landlords (often former plantation slaveowners) entered into contracts with impoverished farm laborers to work their lands.
What happened to the southern economy as a result of the Civil War?
The war had done away with slavery, but in the process it destroyed the southern banking system and eliminated a major part of Southern antebellum capital stock. The sudden disappearance of both capital and labor meant that the agricultural economy of the South had to be completely restructured.
What was the economy of the West?
During the Gold Rush days, farming and mining were the West Region's major industries. Other businesses began as more people moved into the region. Today, farming and mining are still done. You will also find manufacturing, technology, and tourism in the region.
How did the South expand its economy?
With all these factors amping up production and distribution, the South was poised to expand its cotton-based economy. With more land needed for cultivation, the number of plantations expanded in the South and moved west into new territory. Production exploded: Between 1801 and 1835 alone, the U.S. cotton exports grew from 100,000 bales to more than a million, comprising half of all U.S. exports. The upshot: As cotton became the backbone of the Southern economy, slavery drove impressive profits.
What was the economic engine of the Southern states?
With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation. Their fuel of choice? Human slavery.
Why was the cotton gin invented?
There was an irony in all this. Many people believed the cotton gin would reduce the need for enslaved people because the machine could supplant human labor. But in reality, the increased processing capacity accelerated demand. The more cotton processed, the more that could be exported to the mills of Great Britain and New England. And the invention of the cotton gin coincided with other developments that opened up large-scale global trade: Cargo ships were built bigger, better and easier to navigate. Powerful navies protected them against piracy. And newly invented steam engines powered these ships, as well as looms and weaving machines, which increased the capacity to produce cotton cloth.
How did the slave economy affect the South?
By the start of the war, the South was producing 75 percent of the world’s cotton and creating more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. Enslaved workers represented Southern planters’ most significant investment —and the bulk ...
What was the impact of the Abolitionist movement on the South?
The Abolitionist movement, which called for an elimination of the institution of slavery, gained influence in Congress. Tariff taxes were passed to help Northern businesses fend off foreign competition but hurt Southern consumers. By the 1850s, many Southerners believed a peaceful secession from the Union was the only path forward.
What did the slaves leave the fields with?
Enslaved workers leaving the fields with baskets of cotton. (Credit: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images)
What were the cash crops that were grown in the southern colonies?
With ideal climate and available land, property owners in the southern colonies began establishing plantation farms for cash crops like rice, tobacco and sugar cane —enterprises that required increasing amounts of labor.
What is the South African economy?
The South African economy is essentially based on private enterprise, but the state participates in many ways. Through the Industrial Development Corporation, the apartheid-era government set up and controlled a wide array of public corporations, many relating to industrial infrastructure. Two such corporations—one, the country’s primary producer of iron and steel; the other, an important producer of oil from coal—were privatized in the 1980s. The Electrical Supply Commission (ESKOM), the major electricity utility, remains government-controlled, but several entities that formerly were branches of government have been converted to public corporations, including Transnet, which runs the railways and harbours. In the 1990s the government partially privatized airlines and telecommunications, and, despite fierce opposition from trade unions, official economic policy has been to continue partially or completely privatizing many public enterprises.
What are the major industries in South Africa?
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing . Agriculture is of major importance to South Africa. It produces a significant portion of exports and contributes greatly to the domestic economy, especially as an employer, though land and water resources are generally poor.
What are the resources of the forest?
Timber resources are minimal, but the small amount of forested land has been supplemented by substantial areas under plantation in the wetter parts of the east and southeast. The forest industry supplies mining timber, pulpwood for paper and board mills, and building timbers mostly sufficient for a construction industry that primarily uses brick, concrete, and steel. Fishing areas lie mainly off the western and southern coasts. The principal shoal-fishing catches are pilchard and maasbanker, while offshore trawling brings in kingklip, Agulhas sole, Cape hake, and kabeljou, among others.
Did South Africa's economy rebound in the 1990s?
South Africa’s economy did not immediately rebound in the early 1990s while apartheid was being dismantled, as investors waited to see what would happen. Only after democratic elections in 1994 did significant investment return. Postapartheid South Africa was then faced with the problem of integrating the previously disenfranchised ...
What was the primary crop in the South?
Above all, cotton was the primary crop throughout the South, with the growing cotton region stretching from the Carolinas to Texas. In addition to large plantations that spanned hundreds of acres, smaller farms dotted the countryside. The owners of plantations and large farms grew crops for the market, as well as for home use.
Why did the South become an agrarian society?
With its mild climate and fertile soil, the South became an agrarian society, where tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton, wheat, and hemp undergirded the economy. Because of a labor shortage, landowners bought African slaves to work their massive plantations, and even small-scale farmers often used slave labor as their means allowed.
Why were slaves important to the South?
From the earliest days of the American colonies, African slaves played an important role in the South because there was a shortage of workers throughout the fledgling nation. Yet as the use of slaves diminished in the North over time, it increased in the Southern states. This was because it was advantageous for the landowners to use slaves instead of hiring white free laborers who might cost more, strike, or quit. Their plantations depended on increased production of export crops on increasingly tired soil.
How was slave labor productive?
Contrary to views espoused by critics of the system at the time, slave labor was productive. Slaveholders in the South extracted sufficient labor from their slaves to produce a considerable surplus each year. They did this with a combination of coercion and incentives that implies a very close control of labor by the master. Even the smallest task was organized and supervised by the master or his "driver," and little regard was given to the desires of the slave for leisure time (1989, p. 45).
Why were slaves poor?
Thus, the long-held view that slaves were poor workers due to such reasons as a lack of desire, poor-quality tools, and an insufficient diet has been challenged by a number of historians, including Roger Ransom, who maintains:
What did the purchasing records show about plantations?
Purchasing records demonstrate how plantations varied in the extent to which they were self-sufficient. In addition to those slaves who were trained to accomplish household chores, such as spinning, weaving, and sewing, other slaves learned blacksmithing, barrel making, and tanning.
Why did crop yields decrease?
Because there was not enough manure to fertilize fields on plantations with 500 to 600 acres under cultivation and because the new commercial fertilizers were prohibitively costly , crop yields gradually decreased (Genovese 1965, p. 95).
