Why did the southern colonies need slave labor?
Perhaps a better way to think of the question is to ask, why did the institution of slavery die out later in the southern United States than in the north? The has to do with economics. Historically, slavery tended to end around the time that industrialization took hold of a region. This is because automation eliminated much of the need for the human labor that slavery provided. In England, slavery was abolished well before the institution ended in the United States as England led the US in industialization by about a century. In the US, the north industiralized, while the south continued to be an agrarian economy and was largely dependant on cash crops, particularly cotton, which required a large amount of inexpensive, unskilled labor. For the south, slavery continued to provide a viable solution to the need for labor, while in the north systems of wages proved to be a more effective way to motivate workers to work in factories. Ultimately this change in economic need led to a shift in
