Almost all of the sugar grown in the United States during the Antebellum period came from Louisiana. Louisiana produced from one-quarter to one-half of all sugar consumed in the United States. In any given year the combined crop of other sugar-producing states in the South was less than five percent of that of Louisiana. Louisiana's sugar harvest rose from 5,000 hogsheads (a large barrel that held an average of 1,000 pounds of sugar) in 1802 to a high of 449,000 hogsheads in 1853, peaking at an average price of $69 each in 1858, bringing the total value of Louisiana's sugar crop to $25 million. Fig. 39. Rillieux's second patent. English version taken out by Abel.

Sources: Louisiana State Museum and Louisiana State University Library

Source 4

Excerpt of Antebellum Louisiana: Agrarian Life

Cotton was king in Louisiana and most of the Deep South during the Antebellum period. Between 1840 and 1860 Louisiana's annual cotton crop rose from about 375,000 bales to nearly 800,000 bales. In 1860 Louisiana produced about one-sixth of all cotton grown in the United
States and almost one-third of all cotton exported from the United States, most of which went to Britain and France.

Although Louisianians grew some cotton in the colonial period, they, like other producers, did not find it profitable until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. Prior to the cotton gin, laborers had to separate cotton seeds from fiber by hand, a long and tedious process. Because gins were fairly simple machines that many firms could manufacture, cotton production increased rapidly throughout the South.

Source: Louisiana State Museum

Source 5

Excerpt of Antebellum Louisiana

With much of its wealth resting on the production and marketing of staple crops, the state relied on slave labor to support the plantation system. In each census during the antebellum period, slaves made up at least 45 percent of Louisiana’s total population, and more than 60 percent of the population outside of New Orleans. Slave concentrations were highest along the Mississippi River, with slaves comprising more than 90 percent of the population in Concordia and Tensas parishes. While not home to a large slave population, New Orleans did contain the South’s largest interstate slave market, where slaves from the upper South were sold to the cotton fields of the Deep South. This slave labor allowed some plantation owners to accumulate vast sums of wealth best viewed today in elegant plantation homes such as Nottoway, Oak Alley, and Shadows on the Teche. Plantation owners also dominated the state legislature, the governor’s office, and the state’s secession convention.

Most Louisianans could only dream of such affluence, as the average white man farmed his own small plot of land with the help of his family. These farmers aimed to feed their families first, but might grow a bale or two of cotton as well. Despite the importance of cotton and sugar,
Louisianans actually planted more acreage in corn than in any other crop. Corn, along with pork, served as the key foods in the typical Louisiana diet, though in south Louisiana, seafood and rice- based dishes appeared as well. Most farmers lived an isolated life owing to the state’s primitive transportation network. Louisianans relied on water transportation, with plantation homes facing rivers and steamboats traveling up and down its waterways.

Based on Source 3, Source 4, Source 5, and Source 6, which statementbest describes the trend in sugar and cotton production in Louisiana?

A
Sugar and cotton production required a small workforce to support it.

B
Sugar and cotton production were intended to support the needs of local consumers.

C
Sugar and cotton production contributed to the growth of slavery in the state.

D
Sugar and cotton production had difficulty finding export markets.