The Deep South as in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida have the climate to produce Sugar. They will diversify and decide to produce the more labor incentive Sugar cane.
It is true that the COASTAL regions of those States have the climate to produce sugar cane, that is not true of the majority of land in those States. There was a reason why sugar cane was not being produced there in OTL prior to the advent of cotton.
Also, the fact that sugar cane is MORE labor intensive, as you say, makes it LESS profitable than cotton. That's why the cotton gin made cotton profitable...by reducing the labor needed for its production. If they switch to a crop which is MORE labor intensive, and need to buy more slaves, their profit margins will drop, making slavery more vulnerable to the activities of Southern abolitionists.
Basically you won't have a big "shift to sugar cane" or "shift to tobacco" in these States, because, prior to the advent of cotton, they were ALREADY growing these crops in those regions where it was possible. And slavery was on it's way out, WHILE THESE CROPS WERE ALREADY BEING GROWN. If cotton doesn't take over, the trends which existed previously will continue. Planters will continue to grow tobacco and sugar and find it only marginally profitable, anti-slavery movements will continue to gain converts, and slavery will be abolished in the South, most likely in the 1830s.
These regions will, with the need of more slave laborers, see a rebirth of the slave trade in the Caribbean, and at the time will see a rise in the demand for slaves.
Actually, it was the South which was pushing for the abolition of the slave trade at the Constitutional Convention in OTL, and New England slave traders who forced the Convention to put in the provision which allowed it to continue to exist until 1808. And this was while they were ALREADY growing sugar cane and tobacco. You offer no reason why anything would change in this regard.
While regions to the north will produce more Tobacco and will need much larger crops to get a profit and thus need more free labor. More Slaves = more abolitionists. With the harsher treatment of slaves in the sugar plantations the worse abolitionist movements movements will push. I see a Civil war in the 1840's
See above.
Last edited: