Boll weevil shows up early

samcster94

Banned
What would happen if this insect showed up around the time of the Mexican-American war?? I am not aiming for racial progressiveness, but I do want some social strife to occur.
 
Given the pace it took the boll weevil to travel across the US in OTL, then the weevil would still be spreading in 1860. Much of the South would still be unaffected, though large parts would of course be plague.

Some of the effects are obvious: significant drop in land values in affected areas, much-reduced but not zero cotton production in the infested areas, etc.

Diversification to other crops took a while in OTL, and it wouldn't be much faster here. Planters kept trying to plant cotton again in OTL, because if they got lucky and had no weevils in their land (even when the general area was affected), then they made bumper prices. Plus, of course, "plant what you know."

Some differences are significant, though. Pre-ACW, most of the capital was invested in the slaves, not the land. Land prices were much lower, though not zero. It was much easier for planters to pack up and move than it was for post-ACW planters. After the ACW, planters were landlords, where before they were labour lords.

Naturally, whether other cash crops can be grown, they will be: sugar, rice, tobacco. Those crops won't fill the gap left by cotton, but they will be useful nonetheless.

Slave prices won't necessarily fall much - they were already low in the early 1840s due to the aftereffects of agricultural depression - but they won't rise anything like what they did OTL in the late 1840s and 1850s.

One interesting wrinkle is that more slaves will be used in urban industries, as they were in OTL during agricultural depressions. The South would continue to see moderate industrial growth - not at the pace of the North, but faster than OTL.

The Birmingham Alabama site may well be developed in the early 1850s - there was a strong attempt in OTL, eventually stopped by small farmer opposition in the legislature. Here the planter desire will be stronger, and small farmer voices will be weaker.

In short, some significant disruption, but slaveholders will still decide that slavery is the lesser of two weevils.
 
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