What if the USA never adopted slavery

Sure the South would still be agricultural but that doesn't expressly mean that the South would still be infatuated with Slavery, there are agricultural societies that don't rely on Slavery.

The reason why slavery was so difficult to abolish was because of Southern aristocracy who knew the prosperity of the South was tied to the growing of cotton, hell alot of them own led slaves themselves and this group of Southern Senators moved in lockstep to deny abolition. Remove cash crops like cotton and tobacco from the South and the profitability of Slavery drops dramatically. This would give abolition the power it needs to succeed in the South.

And really, if agriculture was so labour intensive why didn't it persist in the north which was still fairly agrarian in the 1800s.


But if they do away with slavery, what the heck do they do with the slaves?

There are far too many to deport to Liberia, and in the early 19C hardly anyone, even in the North, would have accepted them as equal citizens. So where does the South go from there? Can it be anything except "slavery by another name"? And if that's all they're going to do, why bother abolishing at all?
 
But if they do away with slavery, what the heck do they do with the slaves?

There are far too many to deport to Liberia, and in the early 19C hardly anyone, even in the North, would have accepted them as equal citizens. So where does the South go from there? Can it be anything except "slavery by another name"? And if that's all they're going to do, why bother abolishing at all?
Straight to Jim Crow, this is about abolishing Slavery not abolishing racism. Even with no slavery in the US there will still be white supremacist ideals still lurking beneath the surface. It's a half finished job if you ask me.
 
The problem with asking this question is that the US didn't just adopt slavery on it's own. When European powers colonized the Americas, they brought slavery with them and integrated it into the economies of their new settlements. That is a huge reason institutional racism has historically been such a big problem in America - it was deliberately established as a key part of colonial society for maximum imperialist exploitation. So the issue isn't so much how the USA could have not adopted slavery, but rather how Americans could have disowned it at the nation's founding or at the very least much earlier than 1865. In parts of America, this actually did happen. Inspired by the Revolution, northern states like Massachusetts acted to abolish slavery or like New York they gradually phased it out. This was in part because the North did not rely upon slavery for economic development, instead their economies were based off small farming, trade, and commerce. Slavery played a part in all of these elements, but not a necessary one. In contrast the South's economy was designed by Britain to be based primarily off industrial levels of tobacco and indigo farming which required brutal labor that no free man would do. Despite this, Southerners like Washington and Jefferson predicted that slavery would eventually die out on its own. Unfortunately they were wrong thanks to the cotton gin. To get the South to abolish slavery voluntarily and do so early, the cotton gin would need to be butterflied so that slavery would decline and cease to be profitable. Given this POD, slavery could almost certainly be abolished everywhere in America by 1840, only seven years after the British Empire. It's not a perfect scenario, but millions would be spared the evils of bondage, rape, and murder. And even if some minor rebellion did occur over slavery (likely confined to SC or the Deep South) America wouldn't have suffered the death and destruction of the Civil War.

Bottom line: if you want a completely slavery-free America you would need an altruistic Europe that doesn't partake in genocide or slavery when colonizing the Americas. If you want to get rid of slavery early (but after July 4, 1776), butterfly the cotton gin so slavery declines and the South is forced to industrialize. Alternatively, the South could refuse to ratify the Constitution and a war breaks out between North and South in 1788-89. If the North wins, it could result in the gradual abolition of slavery down the road. But given that there is a chance the South would win instead (and therefore be able to perpetuate slavery long after its OTL death of 1865) a peaceful abolition is preferable.
 
What would it take to butterfly the cotton gin away? From my readings on the matter, it seems that the cotton gin was a critical component to the industrial revolution. Cotton textiles didn't start dropping in price until the cotton gin allowed the South to greatly expand the production of cotton. Although I'm sure it's debatable, a cogent argument could be made that in order to butterfly away the cotton gin, you'd have to severely retard the industrial revolution. In 1790, the US produced 4,000 bales of cotton or around 2 million pounds. By 1840, the US was producing in excess of 1.4 million bales. One can argue that without the cotton gin there would have been no means of feeding the textile miles of Great Britain. With no means of feeding the textile mills, why would they have been invented in the first place?

If one was interested in exploring a timeline in which the cotton gin wasn't invented, it seems reasonable to explore a world in which the industrial revolution never takes off or is severely limited in its impact.
 
The British win the war, and then the OTL French revlolution happens in Britain, and the republican government abolishes slavery and enforces that in the colonies.
 

Philip

Donor
What would it take to butterfly the cotton gin away?

You can delay it maybe a decade. Other versions were in use in India for long staple cotton. It's invention is not a conceptual leap. Rather it is a technical problem to work out.
 
Last edited:
What would it take to butterfly the cotton gin away?

Eli Whitney not going South.

In my Washington Wins At Brandywine TL, I have the South (Carolinas, Georgia) split off because an early US win means earlier start on a Constitution sicne the Articles aren't even totally adopted, with John Adams' influence and John Laurens in South Carolina these states are more ready to bolt. Whitney moving south gets butterflied. While it's harder wityhout the nations splitting, you could have a letter inviting him get lost or something else.

This butterflies it for about a decade, but that's just enough time to maybe get Virginia to be more interested in gradual emancipation, maybe North CArolina, too, and while it's trickier with South Carolina and Georgia still in the US, you could at least get enough planters moving from Virginia further south or at least selling their slaves that you might see it more entrenched in those states (and presumably Alabama and Mississippi) but it would only be those 4 states, if all went well. It's probably easier in my TL than in one where the USA stays together, though.

It would appear about 1800-1805 anyway, but the decade or so of not having it would be crucial for the young nation.
 
Eli Whitney not going South.

In my Washington Wins At Brandywine TL, I have the South (Carolinas, Georgia) split off because an early US win means earlier start on a Constitution sicne the Articles aren't even totally adopted, with John Adams' influence and John Laurens in South Carolina these states are more ready to bolt. Whitney moving south gets butterflied. While it's harder wityhout the nations splitting, you could have a letter inviting him get lost or something else.

This butterflies it for about a decade, but that's just enough time to maybe get Virginia to be more interested in gradual emancipation, maybe North CArolina, too, and while it's trickier with South Carolina and Georgia still in the US, you could at least get enough planters moving from Virginia further south or at least selling their slaves that you might see it more entrenched in those states (and presumably Alabama and Mississippi) but it would only be those 4 states, if all went well. It's probably easier in my TL than in one where the USA stays together, though.

It would appear about 1800-1805 anyway, but the decade or so of not having it would be crucial for the young nation.

I disagree that a decade without the cotton gin would make much difference in the world of slavery. Sure, the boundaries of the US might possibly be different (although I'm skeptical). I think the larger point is that the world in which the cotton gin (or something that works the same way) doesn't get invented, is a very, very different world. Whether Eli Whitney or someone else invents a cotton gin in 1803 instead of 1793, the world largely chugs along a similar developmental line (give or take a bit of variance), ala slavery. But a world in which a cotton gin like invention doesn't get built is an incredibly different world, because the development of earlier building blocks don't happen or happen very late.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
There seems some strange concept that slavery was somehow separable from the early US, rather than an integral part of it. I even remember reading a timeline on here where George Washington (yes, slaveraping George Wahington) wisely weighed in to advise the early congress that "God made men whole, not in fractions" (in reference to that slave=2/3 not slave thing youse did to work out representation for each distirict) then smugly sat down. Congress then decided slavery WAS A BAD THING, and abolished it.

Sorry, no. Slavery was not an aberration which went against the values of the Republic, racism was a feature not a bug of the USA for a good 190 years. Arguably still.
 
Top