This article compares the two largest raw cotton regions in Brazil between the 1750s and the 1810s. Through the analysis of new data on cotton export records and parish records, we argue that the high pattern of ownership of enslaved people, together with the organization of labour, the specialization in cotton and the cultivation of short fibres, made enforced labour more productive in Maranhão. In turn, the low pattern of ownership of enslaved people and food production, together with the cultivation of long and fine fibres of cotton made it less productive in the North-East. Yet the enormous manpower working on small farms in the North-East grew cotton at quantities close to the productive large-scale plantations in Maranhão.