Cotton is King
Cotton Picking was
laborious, backbreaking, hard,
painful work. Slaves
provided an
indispensable source
of labour and were
integral to
maintaining the
economy of the
south.
King Cotton and Eli Whitney’s Slave Machine (Handout)
- The invention of Eli Whitney’s Cotton
Gin transformed southern agriculture.
- The machine separates cottonseeds
from the fibres which was previously a
slow and painstaking process.
- Each cotton gin could turn out 50
pounds of cleaned cotton a day, far
more than the amount manual labour
could produce.
- Cotton exports grew dramatically and
was extremely profitable.
- Farmers turned to it and “King
Cotton” soon displaced tobacco, rice
and indigo as the primary Southern
export and a lack of diversified
industries in the south.
- The economy of the south became
completely dependent on Cotton.
- In order to meet the demand,
plantation owners turned to a relatively
inexpensive source of labour – slaves.
- Picking cotton was difficult, backbreaking work that required no real skill other than
manual labour.