How Did The Cotton Gin Affect The Growth Of Slavery?

Improved Essays
Are you to willing wake up early every morning to sit outside for hours and hours in the heat separating cotton seeds from cotton fibers? Well slaves didn’t have a choice until a us-born inventor named Eli Whitney came up with the idea of the cotton gin. For those who may not know, the cotton gin is a machine, invented on April in 1793, that separated cotton easier and faster than by doing it by hand. As a side note, Eli Whitney was born in Westboro, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765 and died in 1825. Eli Whitney came up with this invention to help slaves separate cotton seeds easier and faster from the cotton fibers. Now coming back to the problem that the cotton gin created such as the growth of slavery. Slavery, as all of you should know, is the keeping of a slave that does work for a higher-classed person. …show more content…
Slavery was a horrible event that happened in American history and it should have been abolished, not expanded. With that being said, the cotton gin also impacted the production of cotton in a good way. The cotton gin made it fifty times faster to separate cotton than by doing it by hand. Let me elaborate. It took one day to separate one pound of cotton by hand, but with the cotton gin, you can separate fifty pounds in a day. Since cotton was America’s main export, it was important that the production of cotton can be done easier and faster than before the invention. In conclusion, I want to recap that the cotton gin had positive and negative impacts on American history. The positive impact being that it made it less challenging to separate cotton in a shorter time and the negative impact being that it expanded slavery even though it should have been

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Cotton Gin Dbq

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Pages

    In history we have many inventions and manufacturers like American inventor and manufacturer named Eli Whitney who invented the cotton gin which was used mostly by farmers in the south to separate seeds from cotton. The cotton Gin would do a slave's job and especially in Planter elite would buy this because it would help them not buy slaves and save up money because it was an upper class rich people society who probably owned 20 or more slaves. Slavery still happened but Nat Turner however lead a rebellion to free slaves and made revolution by killing 60 white men, however the “Missouri compromise” made missouri a free slave state in 1820.The Election of 1828 made John Quincy Adams the 6th president who also had Henry Clay as secretary of state…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin allowed the production of cotton to become more faster and efficient. The cotton gin separated the sticky seeds from the cotton faster than slaves could. This affected the institution of slavery because it allowed this source of labor to be used in other areas. How did the North profit from the southern slavery? The North profited from the South’s slavery because what the South produced was then shipped to the North where the North then produced manufactured goods from the cash crops provided from the South.…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cotton Gin Dbq

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Southern life was being affected. The growth of cities and industries slowed do to the price of slaves and land (doc3b). With such a high demand of cotton slave labor greatly increased. Planters, making such a great profit, bought more land making the slaves work endless. Though the slaves no longer had to deseed the cotton, greater numbers were needed to work the plantations to grow and pick it.…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    2000 Dbq Thesis

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Meanwhile, the South continued to rely on slavery as the primary workforce for its robust economy of cash crops. Though tobacco was the main cash crop in the south in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin increased cotton production, further increasing the south’s reliance on slavery. At about the same time, Whitney invented the concept of interchangeable parts, which made the North’s growing industrialization far more efficient. This industrial growth lowered the need for slaves to make a profit.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dbq Free Soil Analysis

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the 1850’s the South’s economy in the plantations was all about cotton. After the invention of the cotton gin, cotton production rapidly increased, which, in turn, increased the need for slaves. The South’s cotton production also had a big part in Britain’s economy in manufacturing and textile mills. Without slaves, the Southern and British economies would crash as a result (Document 2). The South believed that the blacks were not really human, and that they were inferior (Document 7).…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Cotton Kingdom played a huge role in the economy of the U.S. While it did bring us more economic opportunities and ideas, along with being a part of the creation of America, the Cotton Kingdom was not a proud moment in our history. There were many important people during the Cotton Kingdom who contributed to the overwhelming incline of cotton. Also, the Cotton Kingdom changed the opportunities that Americans had at the time, both positively and negatively. In the end, the Cotton Kingdom completely altered the economy of the peoples future. All in all, the Cotton Kingdom is important to the development of America by helping shape its economy, opportunities, and finally, its future.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    However, what he did foresee was the deep-seated impact the cotton gin would have on the United States. Whitney’s invention completely reversed the way slavery developed. The use of slavery in the United States from 1787 to 1792 began to decrease. Slaves became more expensive and many plantation owners in the South could not afford owning slaves. Cotton was planted in Southern states but it was very hard cultivate.…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People all around the south started to purchase slaves of all ages, just to pick cotton. Cotton was their way of making money and surviving. “Plantations in Mississippi maximized the number of bales of cotton to be sold by using the cotton gin, which removed seeds more efficiently than they could be removed by hand.” Slaves in this time in history was a profitable choice.…

    • 2088 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A dude named Samuel Slater came to the United States and copied the European factory system. Then a dude named Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and the manufacturing technique of interchangeable parts. Manufacturing with interchangeable parts made the whole system much smoother, quicker, and more efficient. Additionally, the cotton gin exponentially increased the productivity of the South, allowing them to export craploads of cotton. The South became known as the Cotton Kingdom because of all of its success.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cotton Gin Research Paper

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A vast number of slaves were freed by their masters and they had the opportunity to find their families they were separated from. They were safe from laborious activities, being tortured and humiliated. Once the cotton gin was invented it became easier to produce cotton. Now cotton production was easier and cotton farming at the time was considered as a money-making business that allowed the farmers to gain returns in the form of huge profits. White people who owned the farms thought that they were too superior to do the manual labor themselves and they had to bring in African Americans who were inferior and stronger and thus capable of performing the hard tasks that were associated with cotton farming.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Civil War Slavery Causes

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Final Exam Question 1: Slavery The Cause of the Civil War Prior to 1830 Slavery was viewed as a necessary evil among many Americans. As a result of the Constitutional Convention the founders banned the importation of new slaves, put a temporary hold on debates to abolish slavery, and instituted the three-fifths rule for federal representation and taxation. The founding fathers, hoped through providence this regrettable evil would eventually become extinct in time (Stamp pg, 157). Following the American Revolution slavery had been on this path and was on the decline in many states. However, the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased the profitability of cotton.…

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the invention of the cotton gin, the process became automated and efficient. Instead of ten laborers, the job was reduced one slave. This offered a huge economic…

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dehumanization Of Slavery

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In 1807, American congressmen ended the Atlantic slave trade, bringing America one step closer to abolishing slavery entirely. However, the Slave Trade Act of 1807 did little to slow slavery’s influence in America. The brand-new cotton gin revived the southern economy during the early 1800’s and intensified the flow of slavery into the west. As a result, slaves were regularly bought, sold, and transported throughout the Cotton Kingdom as desirable commodities, embodying and increasing the southerners’ wealth. Through the dehumanization of African-Americans, the monetary value assigned to slaves, and the mobility of the slave trade, it was evident that slavery was the business of trading people as commodities to further benefit the white…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Where would we be today without technology? Technology has been a component of our modern day lives dating back at least two centuries. The earliest forms of technology don't look like anything like what we have today, but it has always made our lives more facile and preponderant. The industrial revolution took place in the 18th and 19th centuries, mostly in the rural components of Europe and America. Without the genuine upgrades of substantial scale assembling, transportation and correspondence we wouldn't be wherever close where we are today to the extent innovation.…

    • 966 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays