From Slavery To freedom by John Hope Franklin, in chapter 7 the first topic that was brought up was King Cotton. In the domestic slave trade, which took place from 1808-1865. It talked about how technology supported expansion of slave labor. Eli Whitney`s 1794 intervention of the cotton gin. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama rapidly grew with the demand for cotton and sugarcane. Growing prosperity in new states caused wave of migrants and greater demand for slaves. This demand resulted in: acquisition of Florida, admission of Missouri as slave state, annexation of Texas, and war of Mexico.…
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the late 1800’s. Its original purpose was to help people separate cotton fibers from their seeds. This process was necessary in order to use the cotton in its proper way. This invention came at a time when slavery was starting to slowly become less crucial to the nation’s economy and freeing slaves was gaining momentum. The cotton gin soiled all plans of reducing slavery by increasing production of cotton and completely revamping slavery in the south. It made slaves monetarily worth more; by making cotton a cash crop; cheap to grow and much easier to pick.…
The cotton gin gave birth to the American mass-production concept and brought the South prosperity, but still contributed to the growth of slavery. While the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. Because…
To begin with, after hearing that Southern planters were in need of a way to make growing and producing cotton profitable Eli Whitney invented a machine he liked to call the cotton gin.2 Whitney’s invention was able to change the way cotton was harvested and cleaned. Slaves used to only be able to harvest a single pound a day but with this machine 50 pounds could be harvested in the same amount of…
The first ships with African Slaves arrived in America in the 1600s and the slave trade spread through the colonies and continued through the birth of the United States. With the expansion of cotton and other goods of agriculture through the South, more slaves were needed to continue production. But after the American Revolution, many American goods, including indigo and tobacco, lost their appeal because the British were less keen to only trading with the US. Many slaves that previously worked were unnecessary and became a social burden on southern plantation owners. Many owners wished for the abolition of the slave trade as they saw these slaves as an economical loss because they were not making enough profit with the…
As the South lacked the ability to process raw cotton, they were faced with a nearly insurmountable obstacle. They produced too little cotton to be able to cover the costs of shipping it to a processing plant, most likely in the North or England, their primary consumers. Yielding little return on the high-maintenance King (Queen?) of the South, her cotton production spiraled into decline in the years leading up to the 1800's. However, ironically, a Yankee named Eli Whitney helped the South's dependency on slavery to bloom like many never though possible with his invention of the cotton gin in 1793. His machine automated the seed…
In the early 1800's there were many things that were hard to do because there were not machines to do them like we have now. Eli Whitney was the man who invented the Cotton Gin, and made the Cotton production go along ten times faster. Eli Whitney was born in 1765, and grew up on a farm in Massachusetts. When he had grown older, he got a job at a tobacco plantation in South Carolina. But with the growing cotton industry in the south, Whitney's employers turned to growing cotton. Eli Whitney saw how hard it was to grow and manufacture cotton, because it took many hours to get the seeds out of the cotton, then spin into clothing. With the financial help of his employer, he started working on an Invention, and when it was finished, it was called the Cotton Gin. The Cotton Gin's purpose was to get all the seeds out of the cotton a lot…
Eli Whitney wrote to his father of his life after college. He wrote to him over his machine, who could operate it producing much more cotton then picking it by hand and could also function by something that exerts greater force making it easier on a human. The cotton gin was…
Slavery was closely linked to the Industrial Revolution. According to class lecture, cotton plantation production boomed in the south and slave labor was needed to harvest the cotton and tend the cotton gins. The northern industries also benefited from slavery since they were supplied with cotton harvested by slaves. A primary source is the picture of a huge cotton gin shown in class that demonstrates how technological innovation contributed to the south’s success in becoming the world’s largest producer and provider of cotton. The new economies were intertwined as southern cotton feed northern textile mills. Although the northern states were against slavery, they contributed in the slave economy in the south. However, not all blacks were involved…
Before the late 18th century, slavery was expected to become unprofitable and demise quickly. Many slave owners, including Thomas Jefferson, were even speaking openly of freeing their slaves. Either way, slavery was seen as a dying trend. By 1793, however, all of those predictions were shattered. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin had changed everything, deeply affecting the economic, political, and social lives of the American people.…
When Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin in the 1794, his intention was to reduce the number of laborers needed in the production of cotton. However, this invention actually led to the drastic growth of the institution of slavery. This invention made the production of cotton cheaper and increased the demand for the product. Therefore, more laborers were needed to keep up with the demand. With the Second Great Awakening, came many social movements. Americans became more religious, fought for women’s rights, and fought for African American rights. In the north specifically, the abolitionist movement, the movement for the end of slavery, gained traction. Naturally, the slave reliant south vehemently opposed. The nation became polarized over the…
Slavery was introduced in 1619 when the first African American Slaves were transported to the early settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. African American slaves aided in building the economy of the new nation. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 by Eli Whitney was first created upon the idea that the rate of slavery in America would decline, but much to his dismay, it only solidified the importance of slavery in the South’s economy. In America’s Westward expansion, along with the growing intolerance of slavery in the North, tensions started to be created and everyone’s blood started to boil, creating the start of the civil war. Even though the Union victory free the nations slaves; about four million at the time, but the legacy that it left behind continued to impact the rest of American history. From the unrestrained years of Reconstruction to the Civil rights movement around 1960.…
1. “The Americans have made a discovery, or think they have made a discovery, that we mean to oppress them; we have a made a discovery, or think we have made a discovery, that they intend to rise up in rebellion against us. We know not how to advance; they know not how to retreat.” Edmund Burke…
Slavery was a commonly debated issue during the early 1800’s. The issue of slavery caused individuals to question if slavery was against the Constitution. Slavery slowly was dying out in America, most prominently in the North, but when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the hope of slavery dying out in the South ended. Slaves were now a very important part of Southern economy, because unlike the industrialized North, the main source of income for the South was cotton farmed by thousands of slaves on plantations.…
The South had many arguments on why slavery should remain legal. One of the largest points that the South had in regards to slavery was that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The South relied on slaves to plant and harvest America’s biggest cash crop: cotton. “The cultivation of the great staple crops cannot be carried on in any portion of our country where there are not slaves” (Document B). Eli Whitney, an inventor born in the Northern state of Massachusetts, created the cotton gin in hopes to create less of a need for slavery. However, this plan backfired when plantation owners used Eli’s invention to harvest even more cotton which required even more slaves. Slave owners also argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos which would lead to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. The South used the French Revolution as an example of how the mob can create a “reign of terror”. Defenders of slavery also stated that slavery had existed throughout history and was the natural state of mankind using the Greeks, Romans, and the English (who had only recently abolished slavery) as examples.…