Societies in the southern regions of the United States that relied heavily on large-scale agricultural plantations for economic prosperity. These plantations were primarily devoted to cash crops such as tobacco, rice, and later cotton.
Related terms
Cotton gin: A machine invented by Eli Whitney that revolutionized cotton processing by separating seeds from fibers quickly.
Sharecropping: An agricultural labor system where farmers rented land from landowners in exchange for a share of their crop yield.
Antebellum period: The time period before the American Civil War when slavery was prevalent in Southern society.