Farming Tabaco puts all of a region's profitable eggs in one basket, in contrast to the expanded economy. When prices for the staple crop are low, or supplies weakened by a bad growing season, the whole area can suffer. In the first half of the 1800's, Southern states were dependent upon cotton. Struggles …show more content…
With a desire to increase the amount of tobacco available, many American farmers took out credit loans from the British to increase the size of their landholdings as well as increase the number of slaves they owned. Much of this credit went to gentleman farmers, but the desire for tobacco was so strong that even middle class farmers found it easy to receive loans to increase their farm production. Many of these farmers opted not to pay back these loans however, and many in turn found themselves jailed toward the end of the century for not paying their debts.[13][14] Many of these debtors were small farmers, causing a further consolidation of smaller farms into larger