Why Did The Cotton Gin Lead To The Civil War

The cotton gin decreased the amount of slavery that took place in the South, lessened the dispute due to slavery, and also improved their economic growth. If Eli Whitney never came up with the idea for the cotton gin, none of this would have

Throughout American history, there comes a time where a great invention is crafted that comes and impacts our society greatly. Inventions usually have an overall positive affect on the world, but not in the case of the cotton gin. 1792 is when Eli Whitney invented this machine(king cotton) When Eli invented it, he had no idea of the effect that it would have to American Society. The invention of the cotton gin caused an increase of slaves in the south with harsher working conditions, and it also fluctuated the southern economy, which all played a major role in the Civil War.

Economic and social differences between the north and the south was one of the events of slavery leading up to the Civil War. When the cotton gin was invented in 1793, cotton became a very profitable crop. Before the invention of the cotton gin, it would take one slave a day to remove the seeds from two pounds of cotton. After the invention of the cotton gin, it could be used to clean two pounds of cotton in just half an hour. With the invention of the cotton gin came an increase in the number of plantations willing and wanting to move from other crops to cotton. The south raised rice, sugar, and indigo, but cotton was its main crop. This move from other crops to cotton would cause for a greater need for a larger amount of laborers, meaning a greater need for slaves. The south, becoming a one crop economy, then became more dependent on cotton, thus more dependent on slaves. The north, on the other hand, was less focused on crops and

In 1794, U.S. inventor Eli Whitney patented a machine that transformed the production of cotton by significantly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber called the cotton gin. By the middle of the 19th century cotton had become America’s leading export. This gave Sothern’s the rationalization to maintain and expand slavery despite large number of abolitionists in America. While the cotton gin made cotton processing easier, it facilitated planters in earning greater profits, resulting in larger cotton crops. This in turn increased slavery because it was the cheapest form of labor. As for the North, particularly New England, the cotton gin and cotton’s increase meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills.

The effects of the cotton gin on slavery was that the need for slaves increased so that they could keep up with the profitability that came with its invention. Eli Whitney’s invention could help produce cotton lint quickly and efficiently. Plantation owners needed more slaves in the field to keep up with the new gin invention.

Before the cotton gin was invented there weren’t need for many slaves. They cotton business wasn’t a money making business because of how long it took to produce cotton and seeds. I once was in Georgia and picked a big garbage bag full of it took me a year to remove the seeds from half the bag. Since the cotton gin removed all the seeds and took less time there was need for more slaves to speed the process of picking from the fields. The cotton gin made this business a moneymaker causing increased need for slavery.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

With its warm climate and fertile soil, the South became an agrarian society, where tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton, wheat, and hemp defined the economy (“Colonial Economy”). Because of a labor shortage, landowners bought African slaves to work their massive plantations. Even small-scale farmers often used slave labor as a means to help increase their production rate ("John C. Calhoun's Defense of Slavery"). After the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, cotton could finally be mass produced (“Slavery”). However, in order to pick all the cotton, slave labor would be needed, thus the reason for hundreds of thousands of imported slaves during the 1700s. In the United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. Cotton, grown primarily with slave labor, provided over half of all US export earnings. By 1840, the South grew sixty percent of the world's cotton and provided about seventy percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. (“Colonial Economy”). In addition, due to the South specializing in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers (“Colonial Economy”). By the time the Civil War erupted, 4.9

In 1793 the cotton industry bloomed because of Eli Whitney when he invented the cotton gin. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable industry, creating many fortunes for white plantation owners in the antebellum South. “American inventor Eli Whitney and his cotton gin improved the cleaning of raw cotton, facilitating the continuing growth of the industry in many locales.” This proves that the cotton industry rose after the gin was invented. It is evident that Eli Whitney played a major part of the growth of the cotton industry. Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry.

     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.

Within ten days Eli Whitney was already starting his first attempt to invent a machine to help this problem. Whitney failed the first try but tried a second time and succeeded. Therefore, the creation of the cotton gin developed.

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

With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a

     Eli Whitney created one of the first causes of the Civil. In 1793 Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin greatly increased the amount of cotton produced. The cotton gin cleaned the cotton by extracting the cottonseeds efficiently. In the 1800’s, 36,000 bales of cotton were exported, but