How Did The Cotton Gin Affect The Economy

Along with the demand for cotton came a demand for labor. Black slaves from Africa were used to hand pick cotton in cotton fields, a tedious and daunting job. After Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, cotton production skyrocketed from the average 3,000 bails per year to 300,000 bails per year. Unlike the north, the south lacked transportation improvements such as railways, roads, and water canals.

Due to this, the economy of America at this period of time was centred around cotton and as Clement Eaton stated, 'After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the tempo of life in the South quickened.' The industry was able to achieve large profits through the use of slaves-the cheapest labour of all-and eventually 'Three-fourths of the world's supply of cotton came from the southern states.'

Hello, I am Eli Whitney's assistant, and today I will be telling you my side of the story of his invention, the cotton gin.

The gins later became horse-drawn and water-powered gins and cotton production increased, along with lowered costs. Cotton soon became the number one selling textile.

Factories in the North attracted former subsistence farmers because it was more efficient to buy food rather than to grow it. Systems like the Lowell System employed young women, provided them with room and board, and paid the women for their work in the factory. With the rise of numerous new American inventions, machines became more efficient and the United States had soon developed one of the best industrial economies in the world. Because of the need for effective transportation to distribute goods, new forms of transportation such as elaborate railroad and canal systems emerged. The south, on the other hand, clung to the slave-based plantation system. The economy was based largely on the production of raw materials, mainly cotton. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin allowed the cultivation of short staple cotton to bring Southern planters great success. Because the cotton industry was so lucrative, Southerners had no reason to become industrialized. However, the industrial economy of the North and the agrarian economy of the South led to a colonial relationship between the two, meaning that the South sold raw materials to the North in exchange for manufactured goods. The system put the South in an inferior position to the North, which obviously upset Southerners and led to greater tension between the two regions.

The cotton gin machine was able to decrease the time it took to filter the seeds of from the cotton. However, as the Cotton Gin machine became popular most plantation owners were influenced to move from other corps to Cotton. This meant that more cheap labor was wanted and another meaning for cheap labor is to have slaves. Hence, the southern economy developed a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the north economy was built more on industry than agriculture.

     One of the most important events caused by the cotton gin was the exile of the Cherokee Indians along the Trail of Tears. As the demand for cotton and slaves grew the South began to look for more land, and discovered it in the land owned by the Cherokee Indians. The land was taken from them beginning in 1828 when the Georgia government outlawed the Cherokee government and began to take the land. This continued until 1838 when, despite a Supreme Court order, federal troops drove the last of the Cherokee from the land, that covered Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina to Oklahoma where many of them died. This would not have occurred had it not been for the invention of the cotton gin. The cotton gin created a market for slavery. As the production of cotton rose so did the production of slavery. These enterprises needed land, which stimulated the wars against the Indians to take their land, which could then be used by cotton farmers, and plantation holders who bred slaves. Whitney’s cotton gin, and its ripple effect was having a major impact on the events in the American South.

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 there was not much of an impact at first, but once the 1800’s came around the cotton gin gained popularity. The cotton gin was used in the south by slaves to separate the cotton fiber from the seeds. It had teeth that pulled the fiber apart and let the seeds fall out. The north and south, both, were impacted by the cotton gin, but depending on who you ask; workers, slaves, slave/ plantation owners, mills owners; people would have different opinions.

The Southern United States was broken up into several different sections. These sections included: the Deep South, the Upper South, and the Border States. The Deep South as a whole was known for its cotton production and new farming machines such as the cotton gin, developed by Eli Whitney. Because of this, in just a mere 40 years, the areas of cotton production multiplied nearly six times its original size. There was also quite a bit of rice and sugarcane farming, though this was heavily overshadowed by the cotton industry. (Appleby 401-403) The Upper South, however, was more concerned about the production of hemp, wheat, vegetables, and tobacco, so there was very little cotton production. The entire Southeast quadrant of the United States had perfect conditions for growing crops, with very little chance of freezes, which meant that

The South’s first experience with exporting wasn’t a good one, in fact it was horrible. One bale of cotton was sent to England and that one bale of cotton rotted on its way across the Atlantic. At that time all of America’s cotton was grown on a total of two hundred acres on the Sea Islands just off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, however this was just the beginning. The only downside of growing cotton was the intense labor it demanded. The most tedious work with the cotton was the picking out of seeds, eventually Eli Whitney’s cotton gin would make this a much faster process and lowering the price of cotton as well. The cotton industry took off after the invention of the cotton gin, there was a much higher demand for cotton especially in

Cotton was a huge thing for african american that were slaved . Cotton made slavery worse they made more money . More cotton meant more slaves .They need slaves to keep up with the cotton. Also before gin was invented cotton was not a money making crop . Because of how hard it was to remove the seed . And what was worse is that it did not make money. They even needed more slaves to increase the ability of gin. They raised like 700,000. Slaves per year the slaves went up . What was sad is that they split families up , they would get separated . Kids were born to be sold to other plantations .

Therefore, the population of slaves started to grow again in the 1790s and spread into other lands that became the cotton belt (Clifford, 2005). At round 1793, cotton cultivation expanded into large scale as a result of the invention of gin. The slaves in the southern states were used as laborers in spite of the American Revolution’s natural rights philosophy (Clifford, 2005). According to Clifford (2005), the slave owners started to improve the lives of their slaves on the cotton plantations after a

Cotton was a hardier than tobacco especially since tobacco was unstable. Cotton was easier to grow. It could be grown successfully in a variety of soils and climates. The invention of the cotton gin made harvesting of cotton much easier. Before the cotton gin, it was very difficult to remove the seeds from the fiber. In Britain and Europe, there was a huge growth in the textile industry that also promoted the growing of cotton in the South. With much of the land was uncultivated at this time, many men and women moved rapidly because it was easy to establish new cotton-growing

The cotton kingdom expanded after the creation of the cotton gin. The gin allowed the cotton fibers to be separated from the seeds much easier. The need for slave labor to operate the machine went up also.

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