Cotton cultivation was only profitable near the coast until the 1790s when the demand for cotton caused by technological breakthroughs in Britain and the Haitian revolution led to the cultivation of short-staple cotton in the upcountry. This type of cotton, which had a green instead of black seed, was of an inferior quality compared to sea cotton. However, it could be grown easily in the Savannah River Valley and followed similar cultivation methods as tobacco which was the region's initial cash crop. By 1811, 30 million pounds of the short-staple variety were exported from the state and by 1860 that number had doubled to 60 million. The prosperity from 1816 to 1819 with its low interest rates and high inflation encouraged upstate citizens to move investments from the textile manufacturing industry back into cotton which resulted in an economy that in 1819 was "almost entirely based on agriculture" according to historian William Freehling.