Looks like we had plenty of wealth, trade, and influence from the beginning. I’m not surprised at all. lol
And cotton made the US a global economic powerhouse. Due to its popularity and high profitability.
Thanks to what was already in place, paving the way. They should’ve all been freed in 1776.
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Jezcoe
24
Northern industrialization relied a lot on textiles
Without cotton… the North would have been less wealthy.
There was a lot of money tied up in cotton production. Right after the war when the freedmen showed a lack of interest in working the cotton fields and were content with growing food for themselves, it really freaked the ■■■■ out of the moneyed interests… both North and South.
Jezcoe
25
The US south controlled 70% of the world’s cotton supply by the 1840’s.
It was by far the largest export.
Cotton built this country.
The Cotton industry was built on slave labor.
conan
26
Cotton has played a role…but it didn’t propel us into economic superpower as YOU claimed. I understand the need to think mighty of oneself but that isn’t the case here. Cotton played a large part in textile industry, but that was only about decade or so.1830 the first steam engine was built…or there about. (I think it was 1830, as a kid I was really into that stuff). That open up entire new industries, mostly iron and couple decades later steel. That was the beginning of American might.
It was American steel…not cotton.
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conan
27
Yes…thank God Brits and French was fighting it out. 
conan
28
You’re attempting to rewrite history.
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That is factually incorrect.
WuWei
31
I won’t be “donating” anything based on race.
conan
32
Is that what they told you? maybe 70 percent of Western civilization but not the world. India and China with 100’s if not billion people needed cotton that America hadn’t supplied.
Sorry,not buying that BS.
conan
33
Oh so American first steam engine wasn’t 1930? And that American steel product started around 1850?
What did I say that was wrong other then your attempt to rewrite history?
conan
34
And yes…China and India were much larger market then western Europe.
tnt
35
Who doesn’t think our country was founded on the backs of slaves?
Jezcoe
36
70 percent of the world’s cotton came from the American South.
They had a stranglehold on the supply.
So much so that at the beginning of the war, the South burned tons of cotton in order to make a global shortage so Britain would intervene.
I do enjoy this implication that this is “what they told me”.
All the information I am conveying can be found in this book.
Quite a good read.
Cotton made the US a global economic power. The profits generated by cotton helped the US expand in other areas… like steel. In 1850 cotton was far and away the biggest export and the most profitable.
Free labor will do that for you
Glad we agree…now pay up everything you own as it’s all ‘blood money’.
Jezcoe
39
Currently reading this.
I am currently at the part where there is a lot of worry about the former slaves not interested in picking cotton anymore and how they are going to fix that problem.
There is also some theorizing that if there wasn’t a huge drought and crop failure in 1866-67 that things may have gone differently.
I doubt it though.
tnt
40
Wait…what?
You need to read a little history of India.