Slavery was never strong in the Great Valley or the Ridge Belt although society was on a slavery basis. Although the soils of the Great Valley in Virginia were fertile, the season free from frosts was about fifty days shorter than in the Piedmont or the Coastal Plain.† They were largely given over to live stock and grain. Moreover, during the colonial and the early federal period, this Valley was a roadway for northern emigrants who were passing to Kentucky and Tennessee and even to Ohio. Many of them settled in the valleys and diluted the pro-slavery population.

     The graphs in Fig. 11 amplify and illustrate the expansion of slavery in Virginia. The figures in those graphs are from counties in the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont and the Great Valley and Ridge Belt. Counties with areas lying in two adjoining belts have not been included. Although there was a shifting of slave population in the Coastal Plain, the slave population barely held its own during the seventy years after 1790. Its surplus slaves were drained first into the Piedmont and western Tobacco South, and later into the western Cotton Belt. The slave population on the Piedmont shows a slow increase, but here the slave population was not doubled in the seventy years covered by the Federal census. The Great Valley and Ridge Belt, always low in slave population, show the same type of graph as that of the Coastal Plain.

     The graph indicating the slave percentages shows a slave population on the Coastal Plain about equalling that of the whites. The slave density on the Piedmont increased up to 1810 owing to a larger

increase of slaves than whites, and the increase in density from 1840 to 1860 is due to a similar proportionate increase of slaves. The low percentage in the Great Valley and Ridge Belt is continued through the period.

     The Basins in Kentucky and Tennessee show interesting geographic responses as various factors came into operation. The first census shows a considerable population in the Louisville Basin, a response doubtless due to the influence of the Ohio River, which was a great roadway from the East to the West. Along this line of migration came a considerable number of slave owners with their

FIG. 11.

slaves. Twenty years later the slave, population of the Basins were well balanced, and by 1820 the Nashville Basin had a lead which was maintained through the slavery period. These Basins constituted the principal westward extension of the old Tobacco South, and by 1840 they were producting ten per cent, of the entire tobacco crop of the United States. (Fig. 12.) The preponderance of slaves in the Nashville Basin was due not to a superiority of soils there, but to the fact that the climate allowed some cotton culture in Southern Tennessee, although it was a somewhat precarious crop. During the last decade of the slavery period, these Basins show a very rapid reduction in their slave population which had been drained into the cotton fields of the Gulf and Texas regions. Even previous

to 1850, Kentucky and Tennessee had largely become slave-raising States.

     If the region to the southward of the Tobacco South in Virginia were named from the chronological succession of its slave crops, it would be termed the “Rice-Indigo South” rather than the “Cotton South.” The colonial slave population of Georgia and South Carolina was largely restricted to the Coastal region, which contained a much larger proportionate area of swamps than the corresponding region in Virginia and Maryland. The colonial home government endeavored to introduce crops suitable for the warm, humid climate

FIG. 12.

of this region, and cotton, indigo, ginger, flax, hemp, tobacco, olive and the vine were among the various products that were tried.* Rice first became a staple in contrast to the preponderance of tobacco in Virginia. There was an excellent market for it in Holland, North Germany and Belgium. Two geographic factors favored the growth of rice culture. The South Carolina-Georgia coast, while not so deeply indented as that of Maryland and Virginia, is broken by numerous estuaries which lead a short distance into the interior, and by channels between the sea islands. (Fig. 14.) Water communication was therefore easily available to the planter. At an early date, the value of lands fronting on navigable streams was

fully appreciated. Much of the soil was fertile and especially adapted to rice culture. The spread of rice culture is an interesting study as an economic response to soil and topography. Its appreciation necessitates a somewhat detailed consideration of a narrow belt along the coast.

     A glance at the Atlantic Coast on the south shows three types. The smooth coast of Southern Virginia and northern South Carolina, the indented coast with off shore bars of North Carolina, and the sea island coast of Georgia and Southern South Carolina.

     It was this latter belt, together with a narrow parallel belt from fifty to seventy-five miles wide on the mainland, that was the seat of colonial slave development.

     The sea islands are relatively small areas separated from each other by shallow winding channels. (Fig. 15.) They appear to be a variety of delta deposits, modified by sea action and by a possible slight submergence of the coast. The islands are low, rarely reaching an altitude of more than twenty-five feet. Typically the margins

FIG. 13. Generalized Profile and Section across Virginia and West Virginia (after Rogers).

of the islands are slightly higher than the interior. The soil in general is sandy, but is modified in places by silt, making a silt loam. There are two types of sandy soil, one of coarse sand that is generally found near the coast and the other of fine sand. All types are more or less modified by the amount of humus that they may contain. The water table is everywhere high and often approaches near enough to the surface to make even a sandy, porous soil swampy. The typical soils of the islands are the salt marsh regions which were seldom reclaimed; the fresh marsh where the water table was high and the soil, containing a high proportion of humus, was very productive when drained, and the higher sandy and loamy ridges. The fresh marsh became the principal type for rice culture; the finer sands and loams that possessed fair natural drainage were used largely for sea island cotton.*

     The adjacent coastal region does not differ greatly, so far as soil are concerned, from the sea islands. Soils are much the same, but, of course, the salt marsh areas become unimportant further back from the coast. Swamp areas, which are usually negligible, were very important during the rice growing period, a period that extended well towards the close of the nineteenth century. The swamp areas are found abundantly in the Lower Pine Belt which flanked the Sea Island Belt. (Fig. 16.) In this region the river swamps became prominent, not only because of their fertile soil but from the

FIG. 14. Map showing the Sea Island Coast of South Carolina and Georgia. (From the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.)

fact that they can often be easily irrigated. Often the swamps along the tidal stretches of the rivers were especially well adapted to irrigation. Upland swamps, often found on the divides, are common.

     It was in this region that slavery in the Cotton South received its first great impetus, due to the rise of rice culture; not that slavery did not exist in early colonial times, but its first great expansion was due to the successful culture of rice. The colonist at first followed

the methods of the English wheat grower and sowed his rice on the well-drained divides between the swamps. After years of experience, it was found that a better crop was obtained on the edges of the swamps. It was not until 1724 that inland swamps were utilized for rice culture, and thirty-four years later that tidal and river swamps were used. Rice culture proved very profitable, and by 1748 the capital invested in land and slaves often yielded twenty to thirty per cent.

     The transfer of rice culture from upland to swamps intensified the demand for slave labor. The swamps were malarial, the summers were hot, and white colonists could not endure the labor. Moreover, the swamps were densely covered with timber and

FIG. 15. Sea Islands and their characteristic soils near Charleston, S. C. (From the Soil Survey of the Charleston area, U. S. Geol. Surv., 1904.)

thickets, and the work of clearing was arduous. In 1783 the water culture method was discovered. By this method the crop is covered several times with water, the soil is made more responsive and the weeds are kept down. This method made the labor of rice cultivation still harder. It was in the rice swamps, if anywhere, that slavery was justified and the slave population soon reached a density here that was long maintained.

     About 1748 indigo culture was introduced. Encouraged by a government bounty and the excellent market among the English

cloth manufacturers, the crop quickly rose to importance. Like rice, its culture was intensive and slaves could be profitably used. The culture, however, was short-lived, and after the revolution, had mostly been discontinued. English bounties had ceased and, during the war, the English manufacturers had learned to seek their supplies from the East Indies.

     The third slave crop to develop in the sea island and coast district was sea island cotton, which was first successfully cultivated

FIG. 16. The principal Regions of South Carolina and Georgia. (Maps in Vol. 6, Part a, 10th Census.)

about 1790.* The sea island or long staple cotton has a long, silky fiber, from which the seeds were easily detached by a simple roller gin. At least during the slavery period, its culture was restricted to the littoral of South Carolina and Georgia, the reason probably being climatic. It was cultivated on the light sandy soils and loams. Rice and sea island cotton, therefore, made available both the

swamps and the uplands of this region. Sea island cotton, like rice and indigo, demands intensive cultivation and was well suited to slave labor. It was extensively used for the manufacture of lace and for fine fabrics, and brought a high price. At the time of the

FIG. 17.

first Federal census an extremely dense slave population is shown in the sea island cotton and rice region, a density that increased in subsequent decades and was well maintained through the slave period.

     Except in the rice and sea island cotton district it seems that, after the revolution, the institution of slavery was declining and likely, in time, to approach the condition already reached in the North. There was a widespread conviction, at least in the Tobacco South, that gradual emancipation would come both because of the increasing white population and because of the ultimate economic unfitness of slave labor. It was at this stage that a new slave crop became available and made possible the future expansion of slavery. Upland or short staple cotton had been grown in a small way from early colonial times, but it was used locally and not exported. The fiber of the upland cotton was less easily spun than that of the sea island variety, but the principal obstacle in its use was the difficulty in removing the seeds.

     This impediment was removed by the invention of Whitney’s cotton gin in about 1793. Perhaps no other invention has been followed by such prompt and far-reaching results. The world’s markets were waiting for cheap cotton. A class of middlemen had arisen to market both raw and finished products. A series of great inventions, including the steam engine, spinning machines, carding machines, the power loom and calico printing, had cheapened the manufacture of textile fabrics. Added to this was the fact that, in England, the textile industry had reached the factory stage. A profitable and fairly steady market, therefore, awaited the cotton planter, and the southern entrepreneur proved himself capable of taking advantage of it. Cotton culture responded promptly to these favorable conditions and carried with it the system of slave labor.

     The cotton plant is an annual that is rather sharply limited by climatic conditions. A growing season, free from frosts of from six to seven months, is required. Under best conditions, the growing season to about the middle of August should be hot and humid with a uniform daily temperature range. By this time the plant should have its full vegetative growth and be ready for fruiting. During the remaining period the precipitation should be less, and a greater temperature range will hasten the development of the boll. Speaking generally, it may be said that the parallel of latitude 37° N. is the northern climatic limit of profitable cotton culture. The States in which cotton was an important staple prior to 1860 were South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. It will be noted from the frost and temperature maps that these States have a high summer temperature and long seasons free from frosts.

The picking often extends well into the winter.* Cotton will grow fairly well on many soils. On a clay soil, with its large moisture content, the plant is likely to-grow large but produce comparatively little lint. On a sandy soil the yield is light. The best cotton soils are medium loams. These soils hold sufficient moisture during the vegetative period, while their moisture content decreases in the fruiting season with the diminished rainfall. This latter factor of diminished soil moisture hastens the fruiting of the plant.

     Cotton was, perhaps, of all the slave crops the best adapted to slave labor. The various operations from planting to picking kept the slave employed from nine to ten months of the year. Picking was a critical period, since prolonged rains might injure the lint, but women and children could be employed in this part of the work. Moreover, it was an intensive crop, well suited to gang labor. It was estimated that while a single laborer could cultivate twenty acres of corn, he could cultivate only three acres of cotton.†

     The conditions in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia were favorable to an immediate expansion of cotton culture. There was a large, well-organized and mobile slave population which could promptly be transferred to new fields. We shall see that, during the cotton period, there were two great movements of this mobile form of capital, each movement being measurably distinct. The first movement of slaves was into the regions of South Carolina and Georgia which were most accessible to the mass of slave-holders. The slave migration was accomplished both by a sale of slaves to residents and by the movement of slaves with their owners.

     Geologically, the Eastern Cotton Belt consists of two areas, the Coastal Plain underlain by sediments, mostly unconsolidated, and the Piedmont, underlain by crystalline rocks. The Piedmont soils are largely residual and similar to the soils of the Virginia Piedmont. Excepting the Sea Islands, the Coastal Plain is largely covered by the Lafayette and Columbia formations, to the varying phases of which the soil types are mainly due. The soil belts are shown in Fig. 16.

     The Sea Islands and Lower Pine Belt have been discussed in connection with the rice and sea island culture. The Upper Pine Belt has a rolling surface which affords good soil drainage. Sandy loam soils with clay subsoils are characteristic of this belt. On these

soils the cotton yield was moderate, but the acreage became large and the belt became known as the “central cotton belt” of this region.

     Between this belt and the Piedmont is the “Pine Barrens,” a wide belt in South Carolina, but narrowing in Georgia. The colloquial name suggests the sandy, infertile soil of much of this belt. During Colonial and early Federal times this belt was an effectual barrier separating the “Low Country” from the “Up Country.”

     While the South Carolina-Georgia coast is drowned, the submergence was not so great as in Virginia and Maryland. The rivers are tidal only a short distance from the coast. Several rivers cross the Coastal Plain and were available for shallow water navigation back to the Piedmont. Before the advent of the steamboat it was far simpler to float cotton down than to bring imports back. Steamboats began to ply on the Savannah in 1816, and steamboat traffic began during the following decade. The towns at the Fall Line (Fig. 1) were shipping centers. From them wagon roads radiated to the Piedmont, from whence came the cotton to be .shipped down the rivers to the seaboard.

     The Piedmont of South Carolina and Georgia was settled largely by non-slave-holders, many of them from the North. It was a cereal producing region, a region of relatively small farms as compared with the plantations of the Low Country. Slavery at first did not gain a footing on the Piedmont, largely because of the absence there of profitable slave crops. Separated from the Low Country by the effectual barrier of the Pine Barrens, the two regions developed different social, economic, and political ideas that were often antagonistic. It was not until the successful cultivation of upland cotton that slavery and its concomitant ideas became common to the two sections and they became somewhat homogenous.*

     By 1810, about twenty years after Whitney’s invention, there was a dense slave population on the Piedmont. The maps do not show a steady progression of the institution. It rather leaped over the northern part of the Upper Pine Belt and the adjacent Pine Barrens. A decade later, slavery on the Piedmont had expanded; it had become dense in the Upper Pine Belt and had spread into the stream bottoms even of the Barrens. At this time over one-half of all the cotton produced in the United States was grown in Georgia. and South Carolina.†

     The graphs (Fig. 17) epitomize the spread of slavery in the Eastern Cotton Belt. It should be noted that the data for the first census is of relatively little value, mainly because of the fact that the counties or census districts were so large that they often included several belts, and it is therefore often impossible to determine where the slave population is grouped.*

     On the Coast and Lower Pine Belts the percentage of slaves remained rather constant after 1820, although the number of slaves increased through the entire slavery period. The decades from 1820 to 1840 show a sharp increase in the number of slaves in the Upper Pine Belt and the lower Piedmont. The high profits in cotton and slave labor were somewhat enhanced by the development of transportation facilities. River navigation was somewhat improved and turnpikes were constructed at the expense of the State. The railroad connecting Charleston and Augusta on the Fall Line was finished in 1833, and other lines were building. That the Middle and Upper Piedmont did-not show a more marked increase in slaves was largely due to the competition of the Western Cotton Belt.

     The Pine Barrens, as would be expected, show a small slave population. Both the number and percentage of slaves in this belt would be lower were it not that the counties in this belt include some fertile bottom lands and also the Red Hills Belt, a narrow belt having a fairly fertile clay loam soil. In the Pine Barrens is Lexington County, which shows an interesting admixture of geographic and non-geographic influences on slavery. This county was the center of German settlements, the inhabitants of which were averse to slave labor, and this aversion was augmented by the rather sterile soil which made slavery unprofitable. The county long stood as a kind of a “slave island.”†

     The preeminence of the Eastern Cotton Belt, we have seen, lasted until 1820, when this area produced over half of the cotton in the United States. Thereafter, it continued to be important, but lost its leadership. As cotton culture and its concomitant slave system rather rapidly extended into the Upper Pine Belt and Piedmont of South Carolina and Georgia, so it even more rapidly spread to favorable regions in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the “Western Cotton Belt.”

     Many factors operated in favoring a rapid expansion of cotton culture. While cotton culture did not so rapidly exhaust a soil as did tobacco, the prevalent one crop culture without any crop rotation proved exhausting to the soils of the Coastal Plain and, to a less degree, of the Piedmont. Prices of cotton, on the whole, were falling and prices of slaves were rising.* Slavery, with its low economic efficiency, was therefore becoming unprofitable or less profitable in the older regions. The cheap and fertile lands to the westward were a strong inducement to the planter and especially his sons, who, as they set up in business, were lured westward.

     The Western Cotton Belt was the theater of the greatest expansion of slavery. It included Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Southern Tennessee, Southern Arkansas, and Eastern Texas. Besides the advantage of fertile soils, there was excellent water navigation reaching well into the cotton regions. The Mississippi was an adequate waterway in the western part of this belt, and many of its western tributaries were navigable. The Tennessee was navigable well into the best cotton growing regions. The Alabama, Apalachicola and many other rivers permitted shallow water navigation. The importance of water navigation and its appreciation are shown in the very numerous legislative enactments in Alabama during this period, when a large number of streams, some of them insignificant, were officially declared to be public highways.†

     In the terrane of the Western Cotton Belt there are two contrasts with the Tobacco South and the Eastern Cotton Belt. The Piedmont with its fertile, durable soils becomes insignificant in area and importance. While, in the older regions, the bottom lands were important, there was no similar region that compared in area with the lowland of the Mississippi. The principal areas in the Western Cotton Belt are the Coastal Plain and the Mississippi Lowland. Minor areas will be mentioned later.