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?
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?