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Originally Posted by malloyd
Any time you use some "iconic" feature of a society, you need to keep in mind that there is a real chance that it's actually a temporary (or even utterly marginal) thing that's gotten fixed into people's perception of that culture because it mattered for the big thing about it outsiders cared about (in this case the US Civil War). Black slavery was only really critical in the southern US economy for a bit over a century, and not even all of it all the time.
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However, as slavery in the USA was becoming more profitable ahead of the ACW, and
Sharecropping was close to serfdom and had elements that resembled slavery, and lasted long after Slavery, it could have been worse.
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If there *were* a pro-slavery rebellion in 1730s America, there's no reason to assume it has any southern focus. It would be just as likely to be centered in Boston or New York as Charleston or Virginia. Actually, I think at that point there may have been more slaves in New York than South Carolina.
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New York's slavery system was more profitable than the South's right up until it was abolished. The New York elites knew they couldn't fight the abolition so they acquiesced, with little grace but little violence either. An independent New York, allied with Britain, against a New England confederacy and a Pennslyvania based nation, makes sense.