Some years ago, I compiled these data about cotton production in Kentucky for 1840.
The Bluegrass State was not included in what is known to historians as the "Cotton Kingdom," of course. Still, cotton production, using enslaved labor, was a small part of the diverse agricultural mix.
In 1840, Muhlenberg County produced only 400 pounds of cotton, enough for a single bale. (Four hundred pounds was the usual size of a bale.) Henderson, Daviess, and Ohio counties cultivated no cotton, but Butler produced more than 16,000 pounds. Hopkins grew more than Christian, which must have concentrated on tobacco production.
The Commonwealth, however, was emplaced in the greater Mississippian Empire--especially, via its wealth of navigable rivers connected to the Ohio River--by supplying the Deep South with foodstuffs (particularly for the several million enslaved people), hemp rope and bagging for shipping cotton, and the surplus of enslaved workers exported in the so-called Second Middle Passage. (And, yes, Muhlenberg and other counties exported enslaved people "downriver.")
Notice the formula (as a caption below the table) that I used to calculate the number of acres in production.
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