Everyone said:
Butterfly-cluster-wang-measuring-over-the-price-of-cotton
Alright, can we end this side-lining over the concept of butterflies with one very important point regarding the cotton industry timeline.
Europeans are already entering India before the PoD could possibly have existed. India is also a huge source of cotton, and cloth - and because the Empire is the Empire, tariffs will most likely be put in place so that the Indian territories becomes a huge raw cotton producer, because Britain wants to produce the cloth itself. (Unless of course something very different happens with the Company Raj - i.e. Company Raj turned into the Dominion(s) of India - I like the idea btw, but unlikely in the short term IMO).
Supply goes up, demand remains the same - prices go down, making American cotton less profitable. Now I don't understand personally why American slave-cotton was more expensive to produce than Indian slave, and non-slave cotton - but it was.
I'd like to add that there is an important part of the PoD that would be useful to know.
1) Was there a violent rebellion?
2) If there was, did France help?
3) If France did help, did it cause the same economic problems that led to the French revolution?
The reason I ask is that if all the answers to these are "Yes", then there is every chance that what OTL was the French Revolution could very well happen ITTL - opening the possibility for Britain to take South Africa.
Furthermore, if we seem an American Dominion, will any African territories, Irish, or Indian Territories want this status? Will it become a thing? Knowing this is useful, as it adds political debates and changes in political focus to be understood better. Hell, if we have an Indian dominion, then the former members of the Company (or the company itself) could rebel, making the problem much more complex.