Slavery played an important part during the 18th and 19th centuries in the agricultural economies of the South. By the year 1804 the states located North of the Mason and Dixon lines had mostly worked on diminishing slavery, but slavery still existed in the South. The cotton industry had eventually expanded from the South to the Southwest when cotton became a big profit on the market, then the demand for slaves grew. Slaves in the Old South had contributed as servants and in agricultural work. The soil in the South was significant for expanded crops such as rice, sugar, tobacco, and cotton. Slavery was free labor, which provided larger profits for wealthy plantation owners. If it was not for slavery, the South would decline economically and
