The southern economy did practically collapse after the Civil War. Slaves were freed. Infrastructure was destroyed. A quarter of the white male population was

The southern economy did practically collapse after the Civil War. Slaves were freed. Infrastructure was destroyed. A quarter of the white male population was dead. These factors together led to a large drop in per capita income, but it's impossible to try and assign levels of responsibility to each one. [1] It's also worth noting that the formalized system of slavery was replaced with a de-facto slavery system called sharecropping [2]. Sharecropping involved forced borrowing of work necessities at a high interest rates. It led many farmers, both black and white, into the grip of wage slavery [3]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Era#Material_devastation_of_the_South_in_1865 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Era#Material_dev... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping#United_States 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery