Canada & Louisiana remain French, never seized by Anglos -what are the "cotton-omics" of this?

raharris1973

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How does plantation slavery evolve in an Anglo-America that remains hemmed in perpetually behind the Alleghenies/Appalachians?

The simplest way to obtain this result is for France and its Indian allies to hold off conquest by Britain and its colonies.

There's debate over whether this was possible, amply covered in a dedicated thread here, https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...lonists-texas-across-the-appalachians.416696/, that I do not wish to re-hash.

Some believable arguments were presented on both sides about the inevitability of Anglo-America expanding at the expense of Franco-America, but for the sake of this thread, let's assume that France holding the line is possible. Please refrain from participating in this thread for the purposes of contesting that premise.

Okay, so as the decades roll on to the late 1700s and 19th century, cotton is likely to become the chief cash crop of the southern part of English-speaking North America (Georgia and the Carolinas especially, but up in Virginia and Maryland to some extent, too).

However, cotton has a reputation for rapidly wearing out the soil, requiring expansion into new lands.

However, if Anglo-America, independent or British, is blocked from expanding west on the continent, what happens when the fertility of of lands for cotton cultivation runs out in the strip from Maryland to Georgia?

When does that happen?

What happens to slavery, and what becomes the "next big thing" for the southern economy?

Does a few generations of cotton de-fertilize the southeast coast, making it drier and suitable mainly for just grazing?

Or might the desire of the south to keep up cotton cultivation under deteriorating soil be accommodated by ever increasing amounts of fertilizer, which perhaps goes so far as to accelerate the development of chemical industries in the world?

Or is the acreage available in the southeast coastal states enough to keep a high level of cotton production going just by rotating fields and leaving much of the acreage to replenish its nutrients after being fallow for a period after the soil is worn out?

If soil de-fertilization results in no agricultural or industrial model for which slave labor is economical, what happens to slavery, the slaves, and the southern economy? Do we have emancipation earlier than OTL? Is the export of slaves to potential foreign customers legal and viable at any large-scale? Does the south go to a model of mixed small farming for staple and horticultural crops, livestock raising, light manufacturing, forestry and fishing?
 
Well, I think a possible factor on what the American South does with the cotton is what do the French and Spanish/Mexicans do. I would think it would become a competition as now you have more than one country growing the cotton in the region, so that would influence things.
 

raharris1973

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Well, I think a possible factor on what the American South does with the cotton is what do the French and Spanish/Mexicans do. I would think it would become a competition as now you have more than one country growing the cotton in the region, so that would influence things.

But I wonder what the effect of competitive development would be. I imagine the Anglo-Americans would play out their soil first, with the French and then Spanish doing so later.

Even if similar acreage at key points is dedicated to cotton, the division of the traditional cotton south into three sovereignties disrupts a united market unless less is a special deal. So, even if there is an economic incentive for southeastern Anglo-Americans to sell off slaves to potential buyers in the French or Spanish land, this might not be legal.
 
Hmm, or perhaps they don't all start growing cotton. Or to such extent. Maybe if the South has to compete for cotton exports, then they don't place as much enphasis, slowing down the exhaustion of the soil. Maybe tobacco and sugar plantations are more common. Although competition for those may also be present.
 
Hmm, or perhaps they don't all start growing cotton. Or to such extent. Maybe if the South has to compete for cotton exports, then they don't place as much enphasis, slowing down the exhaustion of the soil. Maybe tobacco and sugar plantations are more common. Although competition for those may also be present.

Given that French Haiti was the most profitable of all Caribbean islands, I think the French would develop very profitable plantations in Louisiana.
 
Given that French Haiti was the most profitable of all Caribbean islands, I think the French would develop very profitable plantations in Louisiana.

Hmm, now that you mention it, Lousiana only mostly mattered to France as long as they had Haiti as well. Could we then assume that in this situation, France still has Haiti as well since they bothered to hold on to Lousiana?
 
Yes.

However in the long run, il they are clever, they let Haiti go and they focus on the continent. Haïti was profitable because of mass and intensive slavery. And slavery was coming to an end by the late 18th early 19th century.
 

raharris1973

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Hmm, or perhaps they don't all start growing cotton. Or to such extent. Maybe if the South has to compete for cotton exports, then they don't place as much enphasis, slowing down the exhaustion of the soil. Maybe tobacco and sugar plantations are more common. Although competition for those may also be present.

Competition would definitely be present for all those crops, but nevertheless diversification might be one strategy to help sustain the agricultural economy.
 
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