The King Cotton Project

How Slavery Made American Capitalism

This website provides supplementary material for a research project by Joseph Francis, an economic historian from Wales. Working papers and datasets will be added over time.

Working Papers

• “Did Slavery Impede the Growth of American Capitalism? Two Natural Experiments Using Farm Values per Acre,” October 2024.
• Replication data and code are available here.

• “P-Values on the Free-Slave State Border: A Critique of Bleakley and Rhode,” September 2024.
• Replication data and code are available here.

• The image is an enhanced version of a photo taken in Arkansas around 1855.

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