c) Cotton

Cotton was so vital to the 19th-century economy of the Southern United States that it was nicknamed ‘King’ due to its economic importance. The cotton industry became the backbone of the Southern economy, with vast plantations and a reliance on slave labor for its cultivation and processing. Cotton’s dominance in the South’s economy was linked to the global demand for cotton textiles, especially in Great Britain. The reliance on cotton and slavery had profound social, economic, and political implications, contributing to the regional tensions that eventually led to the American Civil War.