Cotton's Growth Fuels a Domestic Slave Trade

The cotton boom created a massive and constant demand for labor on plantations in the Deep South. Growing cotton was labor intensive, and plantation owners relied on the forced labor of enslaved people to maximize their profits.

After the international slave trade was outlawed, a brutal domestic slave trade emerged. States in the Upper South, where agriculture was less profitable, began selling enslaved African Americans "down the river" to the booming cotton plantations. This cruel system tore apart hundreds of thousands of families.