The South

8.34

Describe the development of the agrarian economy in the South, the locations of the cotton-producing states, the significance of cotton and the cotton gin, and the founding of Memphis as a center for cotton and the slave trade.

• How and why did the South develop an agrarian economy?

• Where were the major cotton-producing states in antebellum America?

• What was the significance of cotton to the economy of the U.S.?

• How did the cotton gin affect the American economy?

• How and why did Memphis become a center for cotton and the slave trade?

• What was the connection between cotton production and slavery in the South?

• What was the “Second Middle Passage”?