HIS271Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Upland South, Gossypium Barbadense, Peculiar Institution
Document Summary
The south"s economic and societal system remained unchanged throughout the antebellum period. It maintained its ways of life while changes took place in the north. The deliberate decision to not move forward is one of the reasons why the two play off one another and grow in conflict. Unlike the north which always had a particularly diversified economy, the south has stayed to cash crop production and slavery. Tobacco, sugar, rice, and the new kid on the block cotton, all had important influences on the south"s development and were the main focus of her economy. Tobacco is the original in the colonial era, but cotton is the most dominant cash crop in the old south. The drop in tobacco prices by the loss of british markets in the 1770s tanked the market, and it never recovered to the same level of importance that it once had. Rice production was extremely localized to the sea island coast regions.
