How Did The Cotton Gin Expand Slavery

1. How did the invention of the cotton gin affect slavery in the United States?

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

The cotton gin was a simple machine which de-seeded cotton. Eli Whitney created this cotton gin in 1793 when he was in Georgia. When living on a plantation in Georgia, he heard some visitors complaining about how cotton was a nice crop to have but took too long to seperate from the seeds (Patchett, 17). The visitors were told about how Eli was a good mechanic and saw some of what Eli had made. The visitors at the plantation went to Eli asking him to make something to help with this cotton problem. At first Eli was reluctant to make anything for the men because he, as he said, “had no extraordinary mechanical skills”(Patchett,18). Secondly, he said he knew nothing of cotton for he had never seen cotton or cotton seeds. Then Whitney changed his mind knowing he couldn’t resist the challenge and began a search for cotton. Once he found some cotton it only took Eli a few days to have a machine in mind (Patchett, 19).

With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let

Although Whitney acknowledged the difficulty, he didn’t want the valuable commodity,cotton, to disappear. With this in mind, Eli Whitney constructed an invention, the Cotton Gin, that took away all the laboriousness and hardship of producing cotton in time. According to an article, Growth and Entrenchment of Slavery, it said, “With the gin (short for engine), raw cotton could be quickly cleaned; Suddenly cotton became a profitable crop, transforming the southern economy and changing the dynamics of slavery.” The creation of the Cotton Gin created a huge innovation for the southern states. The Cotton Gin was able to produce the result the people needed and cotton was able to be yield easier. In order to make the Cotton Gin harvest large amounts of cotton faster and easier, Whitney conceptualized ideas to improve the existing Cotton Gin. By this time, the northern states were more concentrated toward industrial due to the non-fertile soil found there. According to an article, the Growth of the Cotton Industry, it said, “Additionally, the development of large-scale mills and metal machine tools dramatically increased textile production in Northern mill towns in the early 1800s.” This quote shows the effect of the Cotton Gin on the northern states. To sum up my points, the Cotton Gin will continue to thrive due to benefit it brought to the people in northern and southern

1. The invention of the cotton gin affected slavery in the United States by increasing the amount of slaves needed to work the cotton gin. The more slaves a plantation had the more cotton could be produced and exported. Because of this the value of slaves increased making the owning of slaves increase.

After reviewing the information given it was brought to my attention how little I was taught about the cotton gin. Something I learned while watching the video provided was that the need for slaves became greater after the cotton gin was created. It only makes since, if the cotton was being cleaned as fast as it would equal to one hundred people, you would need more hands on deck to handle the freshly pulled, and clean cotton. To hear the impact that the cotton gin had on slavery truly shocked me. While at first it wasn't clear to me why the cotton gin would have had an impact. Before doing research I thought it was a relief to the slaves, they finally had a machine that would allow them to take a step back and not work as hard. I was clearly

The north took on the industrial way of life, large cities emerged as more people began to migrate to the U.S. as well as within it. The population continuously increase,this part of the country appeared to be crowded. The north seemed to be doing well with its new practices, on the other hand the south was developing quite differently. The geography of the south allowed a different type of development, really the continuance of the traditional farming/plantation systems, though, the south did take on new developments in technology . Production of these plantations require the use of African American slaves, these slaves maintain the fields and help to produce staple crops that were essential to their economy, cash crops like tobacco, and “King cotton” helped to shape southern society. Around 1793 when slavery was starting to die out the cotton gin was created, this changed the game for plantation/slave owners. Invented by Eli Whitney, the cotton gin separated seeds from the cotton, this crop became very popular and slavery more than doubled. After that, slavery stayed persistent in the south even though various parts of the country had abolished, or prohibited

From 1619 to the 19th century approximately 12.5 million African slaves were transported in ships ridden with diseases from their homelands to the Americas through the Atlantic slave trade (Gates). Of those 12.5 million, 10 million survived, but only 388,000 arrived in North America to take part in the establish institution of slavery in North America for the next 250 years as tools to gain capital (Gates). In North America slave labor was utilized in plantations for cultivating cash crops, one of which was cotton. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin increasing the production of cotton as well as increasing the need for slave labor. By the 1840s cotton became one of the main exports of the U.S., the South grew 60 percent of the world’s production and exported 70 percent to British textile industry (Was slavery).

The revolution of the Cotton Gin had made an impact towards the formation of the economy back in nineteenth century.Through the knowledge and patience of Eli Whitney, he had invented a machine that helped the economy of the United States. It is called the Cotton Gin, also known as the "White Gold", a machine that cleans Cotton. Cotton became an icon of the days of American slavery. However, cotton actually played a short-lived, yet powerful role in shaping American history.The revolutionary invention of the Cotton Gin had brought advantages and disadvantages that increased slave labor along with the development of the cotton production.

Cotton became very profitable when Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin was created in 1793. This machine cut the labor work down. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor. The southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton. They began to use slaves for their cheap labor.

The invention of the Cotton Gin by Eli Whitney was something that had far greater impact than anyone imagined that it would at the time. What seemed like just an engineering wonder at the time, quickly changed the face of the country. The Cotton Gin was an invention that was built for one specific purpose in mind, to create more efficiency in the fields. The faster that they could pick and process the cotton the more money they would make. What wasn’t taken into account was that with the increased production of that cotton they would still need physical labor to keep their business booming. At the time slavery was predominant in the country and plantation owners were looking to cut cost anywhere they could. Slavery became big business in the South because of this, even bigger than it already was. The cotton gin was the main driving force for the continuance of slavery in the South. The cotton gin also was a huge piece of the puzzle for the economy of the South, the quick expansion was great, but also came with its downfalls.

Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin during the 1790’s gave the South a higher economic standing and a different social path

　　　　One cause of the American Civil War can be argued to be the economy, this is due to the division between the North and South in economic capital, labour and expansion. The southern states’ income was based on the earnings of agricultural work, from plantations and such which focused on the production of tobacco, initially in Virginia, rice and later cotton. For such work, slaves were the preferred method of labour as they held important knowledge of how to herd cattle and the cultivation of products such as rice. The demand for slaves increased in 1793 with Eli Whitney’s invention of the Cotton Gin, which separated the seeds and fibre of the cotton more

At about this same time Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin. Though his original intention was to ease the slave’s tasks, the cotton gin did exactly the opposite. Cotton was as profitable than ever, were as before it would take a slave a day to remove the seeds from a pound of cotton it now took maybe a couple minutes. Slaves were worked harder and harder and were as vital of an element to the plantation as cotton itself.