US History – Before 1865
The southern economy refers to the economic system of the Southern United States prior to the Civil War, heavily reliant on agriculture, particularly the cultivation of cash crops such as cotton and tobacco. This system was underpinned by a labor force largely composed of enslaved African Americans, whose forced labor was essential for the profitability of plantations, creating a distinctive economic and social structure that had profound consequences for the region's development and its eventual challenges during Reconstruction.
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