With soil ill-suited for either grain or sugarcane, Ceará was a backwater in the colonial era, and Fortaleza a sleepy town on its coast. But the cotton gin enabled the development of large slave-driven cotton plantations throughout the state. Fortaleza rapidly grew into a thriving manufacturing town, with the opening of its clothes factories marking Fortaleza as the birthplace of Brazil's industrial revolution. Long after slavery's abolition, the clothing industry continues to define Fortaleza. But with the city still heavily reliant on fluctuating annual cotton yields, it frequently faces bouts of economic depression and mass unemployment. These issues have only become worse in the past decade, as efforts to diversify the economy have yet to bear fruit, but Fortaleza experiences urbanization just as much as other major Brazilian cities.