Cotton Gin Influence

1044 Words3 Pages

What if I told you that the cotton gin did more to this country than any other invention? Eli Whitney's cotton gin significantly influenced the US negatively in the 19th century by making cotton and slave much more profitable, laying the foundation for the Civil War, and making the era of slavery much longer than it should've been. For example, cotton became extremely popular in the 19th century, and the only thing that was holding cotton back from booming was the amount of time it took for the seeds to be picked out of the cotton, and when the gin was invented. The cotton gin pushed Westward Expansion forwards, which caused the North to retaliate with putting more pressure on the South which eventually broke out to a Civil War once Lincoln …show more content…

In fact, Whitney's gin harmed many more people than it helped, ripping more than 250,000 African-Americans away from their homes and into the US. Slavery spread into every facet of the South now that cotton was extremely easy to gain money from, and plantation owners immediately started moving west to gain more land to farm cotton on. As a result, this created a massive domino effect of events that eventually lead up to the horrific events of the Civil War. Mainly, the amount of slaves owned because of the cotton gin was almost 4X larger than it was from 1800, 893,602 slaves, to 1850, 3,204,313 slaves (CITATION). This was due to the fact that America was then producing ¾ of the world's cotton, and they needed a huge workforce to keep up with the huge demand. But now that the South had this amount of slaves, cotton became the US's leading export. They had an immense inflow of money since the US had amazing land for growing cotton and because there were buyers everywhere across the globe wanting cotton textiles and just pure cotton. The US got extremely rich from this invention, but it still does not excuse the terrible ways that they went about making …show more content…

When farmers moved west, it caused a disruption between the North and South to whether they should let the stated be slave or not slave states. The US Government had it balanced out, but when Missouri wanted to convert to non-slave, they had to make a compromise to keep the balance. You could see that the gin affected the country on a national scale when profits were able to be made with cotton. However, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was implemented, it started violence between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists by making farmers move to the west for better farmland. It stated that if people wanted the states Kansas or Nebraska to be a slave or non slave, they could vote on it. When people saw this, abolitionists and anti-abolitionists would move to the state they would want to be slave / non-slave and vote for it. Consequently, when those two parties were put together violence emerged to discourage the opposite party from voting. Things got so violent that the violence started breaking out more and over 50 people were killed because of it. See, terrible things happened when the gin was invented, and this isn't even the worst of

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Apostles Of Disunion

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Therefore, the South argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have a profound impact as slavery served as the backbone of the southern economy. Slavery was an integral part of the South’s way of life that they did not want to relinquish. In fact, Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin transformed the South and made slavery even more important. Therefore, in an effort to convince the other states to secede, Southern commissioners traveled to the states to give speeches in which they would use emotion in order to gain support from the states. First, Southern commissioners feared racial equality and claimed that “our fathers made this a government for the white man.” (604) Secondly, the commissioners feared that the Northern Republicans would infiltrate the South “to excite the slave to cut the throat of his master.” (605) Lastly, the commissioners feared interracial amalgamation and matrimony. According to Dew, “whites forced to endure racial equality, race war, a staining of the blood-who could tolerate such things?” (605) Therefore, Dew successfully proves that the founding documents showed that the South seceded over

    Read More

  • Ap World History Dbq Slavery

    1734 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before the American civil war, the Southerner’s economy had almost entirely been constructed on slave and cash crop agriculture. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin was a contraption that transmogrified the fabrication of cotton by significantly making the task of removing seeds from the cotton fiber faster. The invention benefitted the slaves because it saved the slaves

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Ronald Cotton

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the book picking cotton, the alleged rapist Ronald Cotton is sentenced to life in prison and 55 years. During his sentence he finds himself being placed in solitary confinement, and while there Ron finds the experience rather beneficial as he explains that being in there presented him with the chance to meditate and reflect. Now there are many rumors about the infamous solitary confinement. These rumors debate whether or not it helps prisoners, allowing them to spend the time as Ronald Cotton as seen it, as an opportunity to self-reflect, or if it is a cruel and unusual punishment due to the drastic effects it has on convicts. The initial intent of solitary confinement was to isolate convicts as a way for them to self-reflect and improve

    Read More

  • The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas Nebraska Act

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...l, cultural and financial institutions led to fierce reactions. Bloody Kansas, Sumner’s caning, and Brown’s raid all happened because Northerners and Southerners felt that opposing faction was encroaching on their beliefs. Northerners felt that the Kansas- Nebraska Act would lead to slavery being extended to Northern states. Southerners felt that Northerners (abolitionists and republicans) would try to abolish slavery and destroy their livelihood. The age of compromise ended when the Kansas- Nebraska act was introduced because it made past compromises void. If previous compromises could be void then compromises were no longer useful to the Union and chaos and violence took its place. The increasing violence that plague sectional tension during the 1850s closed off all hope for compromise by the end of the decade and led to the bloodiest war in the country’s history.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Nat Turner's Revolt

    1681 Words  | 4 Pages

    It all began in the summer of 1831, a revolt consisting of African American slaves. A revolt put together by Nat Turner He thought of himself as a prophet and got signs from God. According to him, God showed him a vision of blood and of death. Tuner took this as a sign to go and kill all the whites. So he gathered many other slaves and they all went on a killing spree of murdering white men, women, and children. In the end the revolt was crushed and Turner was killed. That was not the end though. FEAR spread through the southern states. Laws more strict and harsh. The after effect may have been worse than the actual revolt. But the revolt goes deeper than that. The build up, the climax, and then the fall of the revolt. In the end the revolt

    Read More

  • Why Did The South Secede In 1860 Research Paper

    1422 Words  | 3 Pages

    Geographically, North and South were very different places. The pastures of New England were similar to those found in England, suitable for a variety of uses. Hot Southern prairie lands were perfect for cotton growing, a lucrative business at this time. Following the invention of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, the South became increasingly dependent on this crop, and an entire society grew out of it. The society was one of wealthy planters, who led a life similar to the landed gentry of England, controlling politics and society of the day. In the fields laboured Negro slaves, usually only a handful per plantation, though larger farms were occasionally seen. In addition, there lived poor whites, tenant farmers or smallholders, who eked out a living from the land. This contrasted sharply with Northern society, where industrialisation flourished, creating wealthy entrepreneurs and employing cheap immigrant labour. Given the localised nature of media, and difficulties of transport two cultures grew up in the same nation, remarkably different and often suspicious of one another.

    Read More

  • The Differences Between North And South

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before the mid 1800s, the north and south dealt with a lot of disagreements that involved economic differences. The differences dealt with slavery, representation, states’ rights, and tariffs. There was a conflict with states wanting to balance the freedom of slaves in the states. Another cause was the tariffs which dealt with the taxation of imported goods, the Northern states supported protective tariffs, but the South did not. Consequently, the conflicts began to grow and this increased the differences between the North and South. During the early to mid 1800s sectional differences forced the north and south farther and farther apart. The differences that affected the North and South involved the missouri compromise of 1820, the cotton gin invention, and the Uncle Tom’s novel.

    Read More

  • Slavery in The Cotton Kingdom

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    The reason why slavery spread into the cotton kingdom after revolution is because the tobacco income plummeted as white setters from Virginia and Carolinas forcing the original Native Americans inhabitants farther and farther west where they established plantations. The wide spread use of the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, made these cotton plantations more efficient and profitable. Around 1820, slavery was concentrated in tobacco growing areas of Virginia, Kentucky along coastal region of South Carolina and Northern Georgia and in 1860s it spread deep in the South (Alabama, Texas, Louisiana) following the spread of cotton.

    Read More

  • The Market Revolution On American Society

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many social groups of America at this time were impacted by the market revolution. Two groups that I am going to focus on are the blacks and the middle class. The slaves were impacted by the invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin in 1793. In Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner, he tells of the slowing of the cotton market in the "Cotton Kingdom" due to the slow, tedious work of removing the seeds from the plant. And when the cotton gin came in to play, it expedited the process of cotton picking. This tool did indeed revolutionize slavery in the South. Thanks to the cotton gin, a rise in demand for cotton led to more slaves being needed. Foner tells us, "In 1793, when Whitney designed his invention, the United States produced 5 million pounds of cotton. By 1820, the crop had grown to nearly 170 million pounds" (Foner 260). In a painting by Lewis Miller named Slave Trader, Sold in Tennessee depicts the image of slaves being sold in 2 lines, with men on horseback holding a rifle guiding the slaves on their journey. The caption for the image explains that the slaves are being marched from Virginia to Tennessee. The bl...

    Read More

  • Summary And Slavery: The Causes Of The Missouri Compromise

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tempers raged and arguments started because of the Missouri Compromise. The simple act caused many fatal events because of what was changed within the United States. It may not seem like a big thing now, but before slavery had been abolished, the topic of slavery was an idea that could set off fights. The Missouri Compromise all started in late in 1819 when the Missouri Territory applied to the Union to become a slave state. The problem Congress had with accepting Missouri as a slave state was the new uneven count of free states and slave states. With proslavery states and antislavery states already getting into arguments, having a dominant number of either slave or free states would just ignite the flame even more. Many representatives from the north, such as James Tallmadge of New York, had already tried to pass another amendment that would abolish slavery everywhere. Along with other tries to eliminate slavery, his effort was soon shot down. The fact that people couldn’t agree on whether or not slavery should be legalized made trying to compose and pass a law nearly impossible.

    Read More

  • Prohibition DBQ Essay

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, many saw alcohol as a cause of instability among communities. To counteract the effects of alcohol on American society, The Temperance Movement, Prohibition Party and many others sought to enact anti-liquor laws that would prohibit the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. On January 19, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment had taken effect and a nationwide ban on alcohol was enacted. This was thought of as a solution to the many problems that America had at the time, but it only made matters worse. The American society had been greatly affected by the Eighteenth Amendment in many negative aspects such as increasing crime and violence, worsening the economy, and much more.

    Read More

  • Eli Whitney

    1977 Words  | 4 Pages

    By 1790 slavery was on the decline in America. Apart from tobacco, rice, and a special strain of cotton that could be grown only in very few places, the South really had no money crop to export. Tobacco was a land waster, depleting the soil within very few years. Land was so cheap that tobacco planters never bothered to reclaim the soil by crop rotation -- they simply found new land farther west. The other crops -- rice, indigo, corn, and some wheat -- made for no great wealth. Slaves cost something, not only to buy but to maintain, and some Southern planters thought that conditions had reached a point where a slave's labor no longer paid for his care. Eli Whitney came to the south in 1793, conveniently enough, during the time when Southern planters were in their most desperate days. In a little over a week, he started the biggest avalanche of production that any economy had ever experienced. The South would never be the same again.

    Read More

  • Picking Cotton: Racism, And Ronald Cotton

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Forgiveness" and "racism" are two words that usually do not go together. Surprisingly enough Picking Cotton tells the story of how Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton showed the upmost forgiveness for a wrongful conviction that in part was caused due to the racism. Racism was surely present in the South in the early 1900 's, but historically one does not think racism was a major issue in the 80 's. In one man 's opinion, Ronald Cotton, the Burlington police had racist views that contributed to him serving a life imprisonment for a crime he never committed. In 1984 when two white women were raped by a black man, race played a role in convicting the wrong black man in Burlington, North Carolina. Ronald Cotton was wrongfully convicted by racism

    Read More

  • The Cotton Gin’s Impact on American Industry and Slavery

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    A graduate from Yale University had thoughts of becoming a lawyer, but he needed a job urgently. After a tutoring job fell through, he accepted a position on a plantation in Georgia. His employer, Catherine Green, saw much talent in him and encouraged him to find a way to make cotton profitable. He promptly began working on a solution to the problem of separating the seeds from the cotton. On March 14, 1794, Eli Whitney was granted a patent for the cotton gin.1 The cotton gin impacted American industry and slavery changing the course of American history.

    Read More

  • The Cotton Gin

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the late 1700’s the slave population in the United States had decreased. Before the invention of the cotton gin the South, which could only make money by farming, was loosing money because it didn’t have a major crop to export to England and the North besides tobacco and rice. However, these crops could be grown elsewhere. Cotton was the key because it couldn’t be grown in large amounts in other places, but only one type of cotton that could be cleaned easily. This was long-staple cotton. Another problem arose; long-staple cotton only could be grown along the coast. There was another strain of cotton that until then could not be cleaned easily so it wasn’t worth growing. The cotton gin was the solution to this problem. With the invention of the cotton gin short stemmed cotton could be cleaned easily making cotton a valued export and it could be grown anywhere in the south. The era of the “Cotton Kingdom” began with this invention leading into an explosion in the necessity of slaves.

    Read More

More about Cotton Gin Influence

Open Document