North vs. South
Southern slavery focused mainly around the plantation economy. Products such as cotton and cash crops required a great deal of labor to be successfully cultivated. As the southern plantation economy grew and thrived, slavery in the South became increasingly important. The North and the South differed greatly in economies, and the agriculture-based market that the South depended upon was unsustainable in the North due to environmental differences. The North utilized smaller farms that produced enough crops for a family, but not for sale. Because the farms were much smaller in scale than those in the South, Northern farmers had less of a need for slavery to keep their farms operating. Slaves in the North took on new jobs that were highly specialized. Slaves in the North worked as craftsmen and servants and often worked alongside white workers. Such jobs that slaves were given in the North were much more desirable to white men. Unlike in the South, there were many whites who were willing to work at the jobs that slaves were assigned to, and as a result, there was not a high demand for slave labor. Just as the South grew to be dependent upon agriculture, the North grew to rely on industry as its main form of economy, and began to abandon its need for slaves all together.