So much coming and going! That’s life in the busy ports of the Southeast.
In colonial days, the ports along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico helped make the Southeast’s economy very powerful. Some of the busiest ports were Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Plantation owners would send crops, like cotton, downriver to port cities. From there, ships would take the cotton to buyers in Europe. In return, the ships would bring manufactured goods from overseas to be sold in the United States.
All this trade turned ports into centers of business, industry, and travel. Ports required lots of labor to keep them running. So cities grew around them. Today, the tall ships may be gone, but busy ports are still vital to the Southeast.
