Taking a Look at the Cotton Plant

In her book “Picking Cotton,” Erin Torneo address problems that came across Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton like Eyewitness Testimony, the power of Forgiveness, and Race play in Justice System using Ethos, Logos, and Pathos to express credibility, trust, logic reason, proof, and emotion. Torneo states how these circumstances can be a problem because it can create a change in people’s life whether they’re good or not. She argues that Eyewitness Testimony can be inaccurate which can cause wrongful conviction just by looking through how Jennifer make a rash decision when she identify the culprit when her memory was being contaminated, which then lead her to send an innocence man to prison. According Elizabeth Loftus, she gives a demonstration

During the time of the Civil War, there were slaves working on farmers, these slaves were not compensated for their labor and services and were producing cotton for a little to nothing cost. Since the Civil War, America has produced an immense amount of cotton and would export it to different parts of the world. America has also had enough workers to meet the exact supply and demand, which follows the demand policy. Correspondingly, the manifest destiny caused for cotton growers further west. Due to the cotton growers going further out west, cotton became easier to grow and easier to protect. These technological advancements simplified the process by which people were able to grow cotton and export it to China for the workers to create these shirts. There are now many subsidiary industries to cotton; industries are always producing new clothes every day. Due to this

Cotton is one of the oldest crops grown in Texas; by 1880, Texas led the nation in its production. Cotton farming also increased tenant farming and sharecropping.

There was no money crop whatsoever; the only variety of cotton that would grow in that region was the practically useless green seed variety. Ten hours of manual work was needed to separate one point of lint from three pounds of the small tough seeds. Until some kind of machine could be built to do the work, the green seed cotton was little better than a weed.

I had a hard time picking my Mercy Moment, but after reading this article on Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson, I knew this would be a good topic. Ronald was charged of an act he never committed. He served eleven years behind bars for no reason at all. One thing that made Cotton seem more suspicious was his previous relations with a white woman. He was in a relationship with a white woman for a couple of months so, to the police he seemed even more guilty. Ronald was then convicted to serve life in prison with fifty-five plus years. He then was convicted of another rape that also happened that night and was punished with two life sentences along with one-hundred and eighty plus years. It was not until eleven years served, 1995, that Cotton was founded not guilty after taking a DNA test that was just newly founded. Thompson grieved for picking Cotton, she felt horrible. She was happy to see him behind bars, the man she believed hurt her. But, after cops showed up to her door to tell her Cotton was not the one who raped her it was Poole, she immediately felt terrible. She then approached Cotton and told her how sorry she was and how terrible she felt. Cotton, with the heart he has, forgave her. They then went out to write a book together titled, Picking Cotton. In this book it talks about the trial, how Thompson felt after

Cotton like sugar is easy to grow, but requires a lot of tedious work and labor.

Growing up close to Northeast Arkansas, I notice the large amounts of rice and soybeans being grown. I never have taken into consideration that Arkansas used to be known for their cotton crops. I found it interesting that cotton is what helped to populate the state of Arkansas. Today many farmers rely on growing cotton for their income, but it is not as commonly grown as what it was during the 1850s.

After the invention of the cotton gin was invented, American cotton moved in ever-greater quantities to the factories of Europe. The cotton industry was among the world’s largest industries at midcentury, drawing on the labor of 20 million workers.

In the past decade, eyewitness testimonies have cast a shadow on what is wrong with the justice system in today’s society. Before we had the advanced technology, we have today, eyewitness testimonies were solid cold-hard facts when it came to proving the defendant was guilty. However, time has changed and eyewitness testimonies have proven to be the leading causes of wrongful convictions due to misidentification. The Thompson and Cotton case is a perfect example of how eyewitness testimonies can put an innocent man behind bars.

The southern region of the United States was supportive of the institution of slavery for a variety of reasons. The biggest contributor to southern support of slavery was the dependance of southern economy on the cultivation of cotton, a valuable cash crop. Southern economy depended on the cultivation of cotton, and profitable cultivation of cotton depended on slave labor. Cotton was so valuable to southern economy that the crop was commonly referred to as "King Cotton". The importance of cotton and its dependance on slave labor can be portrayed by the image entitled "Harvesting Cotton" which portrays a typical southern plantation with a number of black slaves tending to cotton plants. The historical context of this image is the cotton boom, which was when cotton began to take off as a staple cash crop in the Unites States, especially in the south. This image helps to explain the role that slavery had in the success of cotton as a cash crop and the cotton boom. Slaves were used in cotton fields to tend to the cotton crops and to harvest cotton fibers. For this reason, the south remained dependent on and supportive

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

In 1786, American planters also began to notice the rising prices for cotton engendered by the rapid expansion of mechanized cotton textile production in the United Kingdom. That year, planters grew the first long-staple Sea Island cotton, named after the location of their plantations on islands just off the coast of Georgia, with seeds they had brought from the Bahamas. Unlike the local cottons, this cotton had a long, silky fiber, which made it exceedingly well suited for finer yarns and cloths, much in demand by Manchester manufacturers. Though accounts vary, it is possible that a Frank Levett was the first to take this momentous step. Levett, a native of the great cotton mart of Izmir, had left the rebelling American colonies for the Bahamas,

After the invention of the cotton gin, the yield of raw cotton doubled each decade after 1800. Demand was fueled by other inventions of the Industrial Revolution, such as the machines to spin and weave it and the steamboat to transport it. By mid-century America was growing three-quarters of the world's supply of cotton, most

     After the invention of the cotton gin, the production of unprocessed cotton doubled each decade after 1800. Other inventions of the Industrial Revolution were the machines to spin and weave cotton and the steamboat to transport it. America was growing three quarters of the world's supply of cotton in the mid-century. Most of it was shipped to England or New England where it was made into cloth. During this time, tobacco’s value decreased, rice exports stayed at the same price, and sugar began to flourish, but only

Sandip Hazareesingh’s article “Cotton, Climate and Colonialism in Dharwar” highlights the “limitations and fragilities of colonial powers” (pp 2) in the nineteenth century India. He discusses in his article the hybrid cotton’s development in America, which India received to cultivate. Hazareesingh highlights the political, economic, and ecological effects cotton imperialism had in India in the 1800s.