36 Migration and Geographies
Urban growth remained tempered in the American South throughout the colonial period, but several key cities did emerge in correlation with the expansion of staple, or cash crop, agriculture. Towns provided central points for new capital investment and places where the English government could exert its control. The early establishment of towns remained tied to the needs of growing plantation economies. Towns were predominantly located along rivers or seaports.
Tobacco production in the Chesapeake region failed to justify urban sites to facilitate export in the seventeenth century, The development of the wheat trade, however, required centralized marketing and storage, which eventually resulted in the development of Baltimore, Richmond, and Fredericksburg. During the colonial period, Charleston also emerged as an important trade capital as thousands of slaves demanded by the growing plantation economy of the lower South entered the port and a variety of goods required by the planters of the West Indies were sent southward. However, urban growth accelerated greatly with the rise in rice cultivation, which required similar marketing, processing, and storage as wheat. By 1775, Charleston represented the largest city in the South and the fourth largest city in British North America, behind Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In addition to their key role in trade, the older seaport cities of the South like Charleston and Savannah played an important roles as points of escape for wealthier members of the planter class. During the hotter months, cities posed a welcome sanctuary from the ravages of common diseases, including yellow fever and malaria, but during the winter and early spring, a different sort of “season,” emerged; the city became the cornerstone of social and intellectual life in the South as a variety of balls and events annually entertained city residents.
New Orleans rose to prominence as the cotton trade developed, surpassing Charleston by 1830 to become the definitive urban capital of the South. The Crescent City became home to the nation’s largest slave market and exported more cotton than any other American port, which for several decades before the Civil War allowed it to rival New York for the most important export port in the United States. By 1860, New Orleans was the sixth largest city in the country and boasted a population of 169,000 souls, while Charleston claimed a population one quarter of that size, placing it outside of the twenty largest cities. Eventually, Mobile, Memphis, and smaller towns like Natchez would also dot the cotton belt, fueling the plantation economy through the trade of slaves, manufactured goods, and cotton.
Southern cities differed from northern cities in several important ways. A significant number of slaves could be found in every southern city. By 1860, slaves comprised more than 20 percent of the urban population of the South’s major cities, and in certain cities, the p