What caused the growth of slavery in the United States?

• A. The growth of corn production
• B. The growth of cotton production
• C. The discovery of gold
• D. The spread of dairy farming

Answer: (B)

The growth of slavery was driven by the rise of a cotton-based economy in the South. When the cotton gin made cleaning cotton much faster, large-scale cotton plantations became highly profitable, encouraging planters to clear more land and expand operations. To run these vast fields, a large, controllable labor force was needed, and enslaved people provided that labor, causing the enslaved population to grow as cotton production spread.

Corn farming, gold discoveries, and dairy farming did not create the same widespread, plantation-scale demand for enslaved labor. Corn was less tied to a system that depended on enslaved workers, gold Rush movements didn’t establish a nationwide slave economy, and dairy farming spread in different regions with different labor practices.