Reply to: "just as good as you"  - If you are talking about picking cotton in the fields in the Southern U.S., then slaves were indeed the main source of "free" labour for that effort until the U.S. civil war. Of course, the slaves were given food, shelter, and clothing for their survival so the labour wasn't really "free", it was "unpaid".  Most of the "industry" in the U.S. was located in the Northern States.  Mass migration of Black people from the South to the Northern States took place between 1910 and 1970, and has slightly reversed since that time.