All of these societies faced similar circumstances too early America, in that there was abundant land to work but a shortage of workers to work it. In the United States this issue was solved with the importation of African slaves. Without the importation of workers in the form of slaves it would have taken many generations of white immigrants to fill the land available in the south and north and as a result the United States would have taken many more years to become a major player in world trade. The introduction of African Slaves to the Colonies and the early United States made it possible for the early planters to work the land they had.
The north provided food and clothing for southern plantations which in turn produced cash crops to sell on international markets. As shown in the map from source material 4, the north produced mainly corn, wheat, and dairy products. While slaves in the south produced mainly cotton, sugar, and tobacco. These southern cash crops were then sold on international markets for profits. At one point "cotton exports alone constituted 50-60 percent of the value of the nation's total exports. "5 As Southern plantation style farming became more common there was a huge demand for food from the north and midwest. In fact, "the expansion of Southern plantation slavery was at the centre of midwestern economic development in the nineteenth century (though the South's demand for certain foodstuffs). "6 Without slavery there would not have been such a high demand for Northern and midwestern produce. So even if your average midwestern family farm did not own a slave they still relied on slaves as a consumer of their goods. Additionally the United States economy was bolstered by the trade for cash crops. The wealth from these cash crops went primarily to the planters and the shippers but it also payed for the food that the planters were buying from the north. This perfect model of supply and demand satisfied both the northerners and the southerners until the north industrialized and move in part away from farming.
