The old myth was that the Northern and Southern regions of the United States were settled by two separate groups of migrants. Although this myth is false, one can understand why Northerners and Southerners thought they were colonized by distinct groups. No two regions in U.S. history are more different than the North and the South, which reinforces the idea that the Civil War was a long time coming. While their different lifestyles, in themselves, differentiated the North and the South, their respective lifestyles also caused their respective economies to thrive in completely different ways. The South was an agricultural society that “flourished” thanks to slave labor; on the other hand, the North was an industrial region, which implemented the idea of ​​paid work. Conflict between the North and the South, however, began to arise when the economic needs of each threatened the needs of the other region. By the early 19th century, the North and South were both moving toward mass production; the North relied on its own industries and factories, while the South relied on the plantations that were springing up everywhere. Since its colonization, the South has been a region with an agriculturally based society. During the 18th and 19th centuries, cotton had become the area's main crop. With Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton could be produced much more easily and efficiently. In 1860, cotton accounted for 57 percent of all U.S. exports. The immense profitability of cotton created the South's dependence on the crop and its essential component, slavery. In the North, where slavery was illegal, the managers of factories and establishments had to... on paper... whether the state/territory would be free or slave), actually caused more conflicts because the free states and the pro-slavery activists would fight for the upper hand in said states. The notable differences between the North and the South led to the understandable idea that the two regions were settled by two distinct groups of people. The South was an agricultural society, whose economy and trade were based on agriculture and slave labor; the North was an urban society, whose economy depended on industries and paid work. The Civil War, although it did not begin until 1861, was a long time coming because the North and South had been in conflict with each other since the late 18th century and early 19th century; each region, understandably, would not give up its own way of life to please the other regions of the nation.