Negro Slavery
Negro slavery played an important role in the United States history, and especially in the southern states. Slavery started when many Spanish, Portuguese, and later British plantations in the "New World" became short of labor. By the end of the nineteenth century the traffic in slaves had increased mainly because of the cultivation of cotton. Almost a million captive African American joined in the migration to the southwest during the antebellum era.By 1850 58,161 slaves lived in the state Texas. The total aggregate population was at the same time 212,592. The presence or absence of large numbers of Negro slaves has usually been used to differentiate the two "areas". Negro slavery, is in this case one of the most obvious correlations to express the dichotomy within Upper and Lower South. anticipated that areas dominated by Gulf Southerners had a high proportion of slaves in the population. In Mexican Texas Negroes were only common at plantation areas near the mouths of Brazos and Colorado rivers. After the revolution all restrictions on slavery were removed. The following immigration of large numbers of Gulf Southerners caused a rise in the percentage of slaves in the total population. In 1848 26 percent of the total population were Negroes. By 1860 this proportion had risen to 30 percent.
There were numerous slaveless yeomen to be found in the antebellum Lower South, just as there were selected areas within the Upper south where slave plantations had taken root, most notably the Nashville and Bluegrass basins. The South rested in many ways on slavery and agriculture. The cotton plantation life, based on a large influx of slaves, characterized the southern region. The plantations set the tone of economic and social life in the South. In 1860 Gulf Southern counties in Texas had 37 % Negro slaves in the total population, while upper southern counties had 17 %. Most of the south remained industrially undeveloped to the Civil War, at least by North-American standards
