Question

a)

1. How is the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in the 1790s related to the expansion of enslaved labor in the decades prior to outbreak of war in 1861

b. How might antebellum plantations have organized enslaved laborers to intensify output? Why??

Answer 1

(a) Iinvention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in the 1790s related to the expansion of enslaved labor in the decades prior to outbreak of war in 1861:-

Invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in the 1790s:-

In many ways, cotton was an ideal crop; it was easily grown, and unlike food crops its fibers could be stored for long periods of time. But cotton plants contained seeds that were difficult to separate from the soft fibers.A type of cotton known as long staple was easy to clean, but grew well only along coastal areas. The vast majority of cotton farmers were forced to grow the more labor-intensive short-staple cotton, which had to be cleaned painstakingly by hand, one plant at a time. The average cotton picker could remove the seeds from only about one pound of short-staple cotton per.

the problem discused with short-staple cotton to Whitney, and soon thereafter he built a machine that could effectively and efficiently remove the seeds from cotton plants. The invention, called the cotton gin (“gin” was derived from “engine”), .

In 1790, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. ... For his work, he is credited as a pioneer of American manufacturing.By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans supported its abolition. Based in part on his reputation for creating the cotton gin, Whitney later secured a major contract to build muskets for the U.S. government.

The expansion of enslaved labor:-

While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor.

an enslaved person needed about ten hours to separate the seeds from one pound of cotton fiber by hand, two people using the cotton gin could produce about fifty pounds of cotton in the same timeframe.

The number of enslaved people rose with the increase in cotton production, from 700,000 in 1790 to over three million by 1850

Whitney’s cotton gin and its descendants helped the southern states become a major agricultural force in the world economy on the backs of a growing enslaved population.

The cotton boom and the resulting demand for slaves brought increased danger for northern free blacks: the possibility of being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. The practice of kidnapping was frighteningly widespread. The 1793 Fugitive Slave Act enabled any white person to claim a black person as a fugitive, unless another white person testified otherwise. Blacks were not allowed to testify against whites in court according to southern law.

Outbreak of war in 1861:-

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states' rights and westward expansion. ... The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865.

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion.

Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in all the other wars in which this country has fought combined.

(b) Antebellum plantations have organized enslaved laborers to intensify output:-

Some antebellum plantations had a commissary that distributed food and supplies to slaves, the plantation store was essentially a postbellum addition to the plantation complex. In addition to the share of their crop already owed to the plantation owner for the use of his or her land, tenants and sharecroppers purchased, usually on credit against their next crop, the food staples and equipment that they relied on for their existence

Crops cultivated on antebellum plantations included cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, and to a lesser extent okra, yam, sweet potato, peanuts, and watermelon. By the late 18th century, most planters in the Upper South had switched from exclusive tobacco cultivation to mixed-crop production.

In the Lowcountry of South Carolina, even before the American Revolution, planters typically enslaved hundreds of people. (In towns and cities, families enslaved people to work as household servants.) The 19th-century development of the Deep South for cotton cultivation depended on large tracts of land with much more acreage than was typical of the Chesapeake Bay area, and for labor, planters enslaved dozens, or sometimes hundreds, of people.

Antebellum plantations had a commissary that distributed food and supplies to slaves, the plantation store was essentially a postbellum addition to the plantation complex. In addition to the share of their crop already owed to the plantation owner for the use of his or her land, tenants and sharecroppers purchased, usually on credit against their next crop, the food staples and equipment that they relied on for their existence

After the invention of the cotton gin, cotton plantations sprang up all over the South and cotton production soared, along with the expansion of slavery. Cotton also caused plantations to grow in size. During the financial panics of 1819 and 1837, when demand by British mills for cotton dropped, many small planters went bankrupt and their land and the enslaved people trafficked to larger plantations. As cotton-producing estates grew in size, so did the number of enslavers and the average number of people enslaved there.