Slavery in the Cotton Kingdom During the American Revolution and the Civil War, the North and South experienced the development of different socio-political and cultural environmental conditions. The North became an industrial and manufacturing power following the rise of movements such as abolitionism and women's rights, while the South became a cotton kingdom whose labor came from slavery (Spark notes, 2011). The defining characteristic of the Cotton Kingdom is that its businesses gained power through slave labor. The Cotton Kingdom thus means a cotton-producing region of the United States until the time of the Civil War. The reason slavery spread to the cotton kingdom after the Revolution is because tobacco revenues plummeted as white settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas forced the original Native American inhabitants further and further west where they established plantations. The widespread use of the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney in 1793 made these cotton plantations more efficient and profitable. By the 1820s, slavery was concentrated in the tobacco-growing areas of Virginia, Kentucky, along the coastal region of South Carolina and northern Georgia, and by the 1860s it spread deeply into the South (Alabama, Texas , Louisiana) following the spread of cotton. Secondly, the demand for cotton grew enormously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Great Britain. Cotton cultivation revived the Southern economy and plantations spread throughout the South, and by 1850 the Southern United States produced more than 80 percent of the cotton in the world. As the cotton-based economy of the South grew, so did slave labor on these large-scale plantations as they were labor intensive... middle of paper... waiting for that, the slaves did the best they could to maintain stability (Wiley and cliff notes, 2011). Works CitedCliff notes, (2011). Slave society and culture. Retrieved October 12, 2011, from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Slave-Society-and-Culture.topicArticleId-25073,articleId-25051.htmlEric Foner,(2008). The Master and the Mistress. Retrieved October 12, 2011, from http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-the-master-and-the-enslaved-black-woman/John Wiley, ( 2011). Slavery, economy and society. Retrieved October 12, 2011, from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Slavery-the-Economy-and-Society.topicArticleId-25073,articleId-25050.htmlSpark notes, (2011). The North and the South diverge. Retrieved October 12, 2011, from http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/history/chapter9section3.rhtml