[DoodleDawg]

At some point a foreign import/export house might ship a given value of manufactured goods on the promise of an equivalent value of cotton. No money changed hands. Cotton was particularly suited for credit because unlike corn, sugar, or molasses the goods didn't go bad.

What was wrong with money? The cotton exporter sells to sources in Britain. The British exporters sells to sources in New York. No need to barter.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I guess there was nothing wrong with money, but I would assume that the hassle of securely transporting large sums as opposed to simple notations on a ledger favored the latter system. The same reason actual money doesn’t get transferred every time you swipe a debit card.

[SoCal Pubbie]

“Cotton was the only cash crop. It was moreover the only crop which could be used as a basis of credit.”

From the Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States, Alfred Holt Stone, Oxford University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1835857.pdf