the south

[longdonggrif]

why was the lower south called the "cotton kingdom"

[raysparx1]

Cotton Kingdom refers to the cotton-producing region of the southern United States up until the Civil War. As white settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas forced the original Native American inhabitants farther and farther west, they moved in and established plantations. The section remained indeliblytied to and controlled by plantation agriculture. From the Atlantic coast to Texas, tobacco, rice, and sugar were staple crops from 1800 to the 1860s. It was cotton production, however, that controlled life in the region.

[jno]

...but it was a labour-intensive industry; hence the advantages of slavery.