Question 1: Tobacco and Cotton were two founder crops of the United States of America. Explain how and why, highlighting any connections / similarities between the crops.
Tobacco and cotton have both claimed the title King and were crops vital to the formation of the early American psyche. They both fostered a climate of greed and cruelty that produced vast amounts of capital forming the unstable building blocks on which almost three centuries of American infighting was founded.
Unlike other early colonial industries (eg. New Englands shipbuilding, fisheries, and fur trading) southern cotton and tobacco growers required a cheap and efficient labor source. While the north thrived with the help of indentured servants (poor europeans who received passage to the New World in return for a set period of labor upon arrival), the southern colonies turned to slavery. This trade in human chattel would leave deep scar lines through american history lasting until the present day.
While cotton plantations developed around a hundred years after their tobacco counterparts, they both employed slaves. This can be seen that some of the very first non-indigenous inhabitants of the north american continent were african slaves brought over to work the tobacco fields. Increased demand for both cash crops and technological developments in farm equipment and practices led to a huge increase for slave labor. A fact demonstrated by population figures at the time of the revolutionary war. In 1770, slaves formed around 21.7% of the colonial population. However in the Southern colonies; which were most deeply invested in the cotton and tobacco industries, the percentages reached upwards of 50-60%. These percentages only became more pronounced as time passed.
This divide between a plantation driven south and a more industrialized north caused both interdependence and friction. The northern colonies, and later states, relied heavily on southern cotton and tobacco to create financial revenue through trade and manufacturing. Meanwhile the south depended on northern financing and markets as an outlet for their raw products. Despite creating this complex and interdependent flow of trade, cotton and tobacco split the country in half over the issue of slavery.
As both southern industries developed over the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a wedge was driven between the colonies. While cotton and tobacco both fueled the American
economy for centuries, they also led to the bloodiest war in the history of america, the Civil War.
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