The four million enslaved bodies, at the start of the Civil War, represented an inconceivable financial interest-$75 billion in today's dollars-and the cotton that passed through their hands represented 60 percent of the country's exports. In 1860, the largest concentration of multimillionaires in the country could be found in the Mississippi River Valley, where the estates of large planters loomed.
( Ta-Nehisi Coates )
[ We Were Eight Years in Power: ]
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