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What role did slavery play in southern plantation economy?
although most farmers in the south did not own slaves, many of the richer and larger plantations used them for the majority of labor. slaves were expensive in short term but saved lots of money in the long term.
since they made up a 3rd of the population in the south at some points, the freeing of all slaves would have destroyed the southern economy and caused recession (which did happen in the south following the civil war)
?? it helped because slaves wer free workers good for poor whites the cotton gin helped slaves clean more cotton a day slavery was helpful because you didnt need to pay them?
the reason it played a part in the economy is because the slaves were cheap labor, free. the owners just had to feed them. if they wanted to really.
Basically kept the souths economy alive by freeing up people to do other things. Very very productive, but very very wrong