During the antebellum era, cotton was America's most profitable commodity; and the South was the world's largest supplier. Climate, the Industrial Revolution, the cotton gin, and slave labor were factors that contributed to the success of the Southern cotton economy. By providing the North with both raw materials and markets for manufactured goods, the income from the North's role in managing the cotton trade provided surplus for capital investment. The cotton boom (1800-1860) refers to the profit made through the production and trade of cotton in the nation. In 1850, cotton made up 50 percent of American exports and produced 75 percent of the world's cotton supply; giving life to the phrase "cotton is king". The high demand for cotton in the textile industries of the Northern states, along with Great Britain, was met by cotton plantations grown by slaves from the Deep South. Southern farmers saw themselves, and accurately, as a key component of the industrial revolution and a fundamental part of the international economic system. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay As one planter boasted in 1853, "Our cotton is the most wonderful talisman in the world. By its power we are transmuting what we choose into what we want. James Hammond, speaking to the United States Senate five years later, was even more cutting: “The slaveholding South is now the power that controls the world. Cotton, rice, and naval stores dominate the world.” factories and merchants in Great Britain and the United States had their profits tied to Southern cotton, Southerners began to draw the conclusion that cotton was vital to the nation's economy. And since cotton production relied on the slavery, this meant that slavery was also vital to the nation's economy. The South differed from the North more difficult to farm in the North because the land was not fertile and the climate did not make for an agrarian economy. As a result, the North turned to industrialization. Because factories produced large quantities of goods, the North required less labor; as a result, the North had no need for slaves. The South was warmer than the middle colonies and New England. Winters were short and mild. The land was rich; large plantations grew tobacco, indigo (dye), corn, vegetables, wheat, fruit, and cotton. And unlike the North, the South of the Americas found slavery to be the driving force of their economy in the 19th century. Cotton production became popular in the interior regions of Georgia and South Carolina: the profits from cotton cultivation attracted a wave of Southern workers. farmers in the so-called Black Belt, an area that extends across western Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. As cotton plantations expanded, slavery also increased. In 1850, of the 3.2 million slaves in the country's fifteen slave states, 1.8 million produced cotton; by 1860, slave labor produced over two billion pounds of cotton per year. Entire old-growth forests and cypress swamps fell to the ax as slaves worked to strip vegetation to make way for cotton. Once the land was cleared, the slaves prepared the land by plowing and planting. To ambitious white planters, the extent of new land available for cotton production seemed almost limitless, and many planters simply traveled from area to area. This migration doubled the population of.