What if the cotton gin had gone differently?

A simple machine makes short-staple cotton profitable, and revives a slave economy that was fading.

If it had gone differently: Cotton stays unprofitable inland; the American South's demand for enslaved labour collapses instead of exploding.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the cotton gin. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1525The Atlantic slave trade scales up. Without it, The plantation economy never finds its labour force; Atlantic colonies stay marginal.
2. 1780The Industrial Revolution. Without it, Growth stays flat and Malthusian; most people alive in 1900 live about as their great-grandparents did.
3. 1861The American Civil War. Without it, The Union splits for good; there is no single continental United States to become the next century's dominant power.