The statements that describe the Southern economy in the antebellum era are:
-It was primarily agricultural.
-It relied heavily on slave labor.
-It produced mostly cotton and tobacco.
The South had an agrarian economy that exported to the international market, it was a large producer of cotton and, to a lesser extent, tobacco and sugarcane. The food production was mostly of grain, pigs, livestock and vegetables. The southern states produced 155 million dollars in manufactured goods in 1860, mainly derived from the grinding of grain in local mills, wood, processed tobacco, goods made with cotton and products destined for the naval sector such as turpentine.