[iguy]

That the slave economy was huge in early America is beyond doubt. But the more interesting debate is to what degree this influenced later American wealth. This question doesn't answer itself, we need evidence. And the presence of lots of other slave sugar plantation economies nearby is a treasure-trove. Many were also rich in the 18th C, like Barbados & Saint-Dominque... richer than the weird experiment in theocracy going on around Boston. Their 18th C riches didn't translate to 20th C riches. The "huge role in the early American economy" at early dates actually tells us very little about the effect on the trajectory in later centuries.

My argument re English cotton mills was much more focused than you credit. It was about how rapidly they switched from slave-grown cotton to non-slave cotton, once there was a blockade, not some denial that they consumed slave-grown cotton before this.