78 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019In the 1800s the growth of cotton as a cash
crop reenergized the power of the slavehold-
ing states. The Indian Removal Act of 1830
dispossessed massive numbers of Cherokee,
Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole In-
dians of their land by 1838, thereby increasing
the amount of nutrient-rich land available for
cotton production in the black belt region that
encompassed the Gulf Coast states.Domestic Trade
The demand for slaves increased exponen-
tially with the rise of King Cotton, the reign-
ing cash crop in the South. The burgeoning
cotton monopoly is measured largely by the
number of bales produced annually in the
black belt during the second half of the 19th
century, with three million bales produced
in 1852, 3.5 million bales in 1856, and five
million bales in 1860. As demand for labor
increased in the established and emerging
cotton plantations in the black belt and in
the West, the domestic slave trade exploded
L. RICCIARINI/PRISMA within the United States.
I
N THE DECADES BEFORE the Civil War, the Southern economy
centered around growing cotton. The dominant cash crop
fed the textile industries in Great Britain and the northern
United States. Pro-slavery Southern planters and politicians
argued that cotton was so important, that everything would
collapse without it, making their stance on slavery imperme-
able. The most famous proclamation of this attitude came in
March 1858 when Senator James Henry Hammond of South
Carolina, a planter and owner of about 300 enslaved people,
arrogantly proclaimed, “[W]ould any sane nation make war on
cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should
they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our
feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three
years?... [T]his is certain: England would topple headlong and
carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No,
you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to
make war upon it. Cotton is king.”WHEN COTTON
WAS KING
JAMES HENRY HAMMOND
POPULARIZED THE PHRASE
“COTTON IS KING” IN AN 1858
SPEECH TO THE U.S. SENATE.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS