If you were to control a business how would you organize your way of doing things? For today’s story we will be talking about the rise of an industry. As well as its impacts that were made after the rise of king cotton, and how it impacts the world after it.
To begin with, in the 1800’s cotton was in high demand and textiles was rapidly expanding. “[In order] to keep up with the new speed of production, the manufactures needed more and more cotton (South Carolina Journey, pg. 118)”. Many thought that cotton was a logical choice to have a successful cash crop and indigo was displace. In the meantime farms also wanted to grow cotton to export. Short staple cotton can grow anywhere (including off the coast) but it was hard to produce. It needed
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something more efficient to get the seeds out of the cotton, only if it could turn out to be a better profit.
Later on, in 1793 Eli Whitney he designed a new type of cotton gin. While seeing the worker’s hand movement, he invented a machine that could clean 50 pounds a day instead of 1 pound per day. Then, within a year a huge profit was made south carolina quickly became a leading producer and was later on known as “King” of cotton. The new cotton gin immediate interested small farmers to make a profit. Cotton quickly spread small farmers had obtained wealth and status by investing cotton and slaves. While achieving this it helped unite tensions between lower country and upcountry. “[Both[ regions [later on] bec[ame] more similar than different (South Carolina Journey, pg. 119)”.
To be continued, the impact of the rise of “King cotton” on society. Let's start with slavery during the rise of “King Cotton”, the cotton gin and all that came with it only made life miserable for enslave people. Some treated their slaves with cruelty, but not all of them were cruel, some treated their slaves relatively well, though they consider them property and viewed them with paternalism. Which is practiced as a father-like-control over them based on the
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belief that they were incapable of caring for themselves or making their own decisions. Some showed kindness by keeping slave families together or nursing a slave when sick. Slaves that disobeyed had Plantation, culture or laws that supported, worked for institutionalize slavery (meaning slavery became a structured and formal system within the culture). As cotton fields expanded so did slave population, prosperity depended on slavery. Slave labor allowed planters, low production cost. “If planter kept their cost low, the savings were passed on to the textile mills in the northeast and Britain in the form of lower prices for cotton (South Carolina Journey, pg, 121)”. Colonial planters with land grants had imported slaves and started plantations. Plantation systems evolved and became more deeply entrenched in southern society. Plantations develop communities where most of the goods and services needed to keep the system running smoothly were provided. While the North was following a path of industrialisation, the south develop an agriculture. “There was little incentive to invest in other businesses since cotton was so profitable (South Carolina Journey, pg. 126)”. Farmers stopped growing other crops that was when cotton became the main, most grown crops. As cotton got farmers high profits they used it to purchase more land and slaves. Cotton later on was seen a growth in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Farmers moved some tried to introduce industry in order to keep the economy strong and be able to still make a profit. Last but not least, there were also some impacts on the rise of “King Cotton” on the lives of slaves in the south.
In the plantations slavery spread into two different systems of the work. First of all, “task system” was a common on rice and sea island cotton plantation. Under this task once the day’s tasks were completed, slaves had the rest of the day to rest, help others, or plant and work small plots of land for themselves. The task system allowed a measure of independence for each slave’s work day. On the other hand, cotton planters in the upcountry used the “gang system,” where slaves worked from dawn to dusk. The gang system was harsher than the task system because slaves were under the constant supervision of an overseer or slave driver. Since labor was the center of a plantation life, the relationship between masters and slaves was also at the center of their life’s. The master controls his power over the slaves, but sometimes there were conditions where the slave could negotiate or resist. This kind of interaction depended on the planter and the sometimes, and it could change often. Some were highly skilled, they were able to get their freedom. If a slave’s skill and talents were recognized, slaves were able to earn his/her own money. Sometimes this occurred with the owner’s approval. Some slaves saved enough money and managed to buy their freedom, and even the freedom of loved ones. In the meantime, in the slave quarters slaves created communities. As said above,
slaves worked from dawn to dusk. Later on, at the end of work they would sing and talk about the ways of freedom. These efforts at dignity and community were forms of resistance. Some would pretend to be sick and wouldn’t be able to work. Some risked their lives and ran away, a few tried to organize others and lead armed rebellions. “The threat of slave revolts could paralyze the planter class with fear. Slave owners were constantly watching for signs of rebellion (South Carolina Journey, pg. 124)”. Planters depended on slaves to do the hard work, there daylight hours in the fields were six days a week. They did the tedious work of plowing, hoeing, planting, weeding, protecting the crops from pests, and harvesting. Slaves did every job from threshing grain to tending to the sick. Life for a slave was hard even with the rise of “King Cotton”. In conclusion, the above facts has shown us that the rise of King cotton was a hard task for farmers and slaves in the South. It's had hard times dealing with plantations, also in slavery that led to industries in a way of making a profit. Now how would you deal with plantations when trying to make profit on a crop that could be a success, would you do the same?
Before the American civil war, the Southerner’s economy had almost entirely been constructed on slave and cash crop agriculture. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin was a contraption that transmogrified the fabrication of cotton by significantly making the task of removing seeds from the cotton fiber faster. The invention benefitted the slaves because it saved the slaves
1.In 1831, James Henry Hammond inherited through marriage Silver Bluff Plantation, on the shores of South Carolina. He was a Lawyer, Teacher and a Newspaper editor. He undertook the running of his plantation and soon realized it was not an easy job to overcome the dominance of the complexity of social system that existed. He struggled to control and manage it for the next thirty years. He called a “a system of roguery. “Hammond astutely recognized that black life on his plantation was structured and organized as a “system “, the very existence of which seemed necessarily a challenge to his absolute control and therefore, as he perceived it a kind of “roguery.” Because Hammond’s mastery over his bondsmen depended upon his success at undermining slave society and culture, he established a carefully designed plan of physical
Eli Whitney's machine could produce up to 23 kg (50 lb) of cleaned cotton daily, making southern cotton a profitable crop for the first time. Unfortunately Whitney failed to profit from his invention; imitations of his machine appeared, and his 1794 invention was not upheld until 1807.
As the Indians used slash and burn to make room for crops when the Americans came to Alabama they learned this type of agriculture and started growing cotton. This led to several events that dramatically affected Alabama's early agricultural development. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain created a greedy appetite for cotton fiber, and in 1794 Eli Whitney patented a new type of cotton gin in the United States, which lowered the cost of processing fiber. “By the time Alabama became a state in 1819, the interior of the state was easily accessed via the Tombigbee, Warrior, Alabama, and Chattahoochee rivers. Crops could also be transported to European and New England markets via the ports of Mobile and Apalachicola, Florida. Settlers poured into the new state with one objective to grow cotton. As time passed there was almost four million acres of cotton growing in Alabama” (Mitchell, 2007). As time progressed people thought of a new type of agriculture.
Prior to the cotton gin, a laborer could only pick the seeds out of approximately one pound of cotton a day. The cotton gin made it possible to clean up to 50 pounds per day. The farmers could now plant as much cotton as they wanted and not have the worry about the difficulties of seed removal. Eli’s invention spurred the growth of the cotton industry, and the South took up the slogan “Cotton is King.”
The reason why slavery spread into the cotton kingdom after revolution is because the tobacco income plummeted as white setters from Virginia and Carolinas forcing the original Native Americans inhabitants farther and farther west where they established plantations. The wide spread use of the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, made these cotton plantations more efficient and profitable. Around 1820, slavery was concentrated in tobacco growing areas of Virginia, Kentucky along coastal region of South Carolina and Northern Georgia and in 1860s it spread deep in the South (Alabama, Texas, Louisiana) following the spread of cotton.
The author goes on to describe antebellum slavery. During this time he describes slavery as a massive expansion. He expresses this knowledge through numbers of slaves and overwhelming facts. At this time cotton boosted the economy of all the slave states, cotton producing or not. Cotton created an intense demand for slave labor and therefore slave prices rose to an all time high. Slave trading was very traumatic for the slaves, being separated from the only thing they knew. Some lived on plantations under a watchful eye and others worked right beside their owners. Slaves on large plantations usually worked in gangs, and there were better positions to work then others. Some gangs were separated into groups of lighter work, consisting of men and woman. Other gangs weren't so lucky and were assigned to hard labor.
In the south it was illegal for slaves to receive an education, to many, to vote, to own property, to testify in court were even to burn their freedom through their work and the have 15 minutes break a day and to eat, slaves were given megger rations mostly of corn meal pork and the last season’s, and every year slaves received one new said winter and summer clothes and a new blanket, most slaves share their small cabins with 10 to 12 people and slept on straw piled on a dirt floor. The lives of slaves who work on tobacco plantations were filled with ending hardship suffering and poverty. Slave woke up at dawn and spend all day working on rice plantations. One of 100s out of 1000s f African-Americans that were enslaved and forced to spend their lives. Because of the racism and segregation, they faced, slaves soon develop a unique culture found nowhere else in the world. Slaves often sang spirituals to express political or religious beliefs, these songs could also contain directions for runaway’s slave. Slaves owner permitted the singing because they believed it helped slaves work faster. Slaves didn’t get to choose
The North and South were forming completely different economies, and therefore completely different geographies, from one another during the period of the Industrial Revolution and right before the Civil War. The North’s economy was based mainly upon industrialization from the formation of the American System, which was producing large quantities of goods in factories. The North was becoming much more urbanized due to factories being located in cities, near the major railroad systems for transportation of the goods, along with the movement of large groups of factory workers to the cities to be closer to their jobs. With the North’s increased rate of job opportunities, many different people of different ethnic groups and classes ended up working together. This ignited the demise of the North’s social order. The South was not as rapidly urbanizing as the North, and therefore social order was still in existence; the South’s economy was based upon the production of cotton after Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin. Large cotton plantations’ production made up the bulk of America’s...
In the late 1700’s the slave population in the United States had decreased. Before the invention of the cotton gin the South, which could only make money by farming, was loosing money because it didn’t have a major crop to export to England and the North besides tobacco and rice. However, these crops could be grown elsewhere. Cotton was the key because it couldn’t be grown in large amounts in other places, but only one type of cotton that could be cleaned easily. This was long-staple cotton. Another problem arose; long-staple cotton only could be grown along the coast. There was another strain of cotton that until then could not be cleaned easily so it wasn’t worth growing. The cotton gin was the solution to this problem. With the invention of the cotton gin short stemmed cotton could be cleaned easily making cotton a valued export and it could be grown anywhere in the south. The era of the “Cotton Kingdom” began with this invention leading into an explosion in the necessity of slaves.
R - King Cotton is relevant to U.S. history because it explains why the South became the Confederacy and why they were so against the freeing of the slaves
Cotton was a very expensive industry. Picking cotton seeds from the cotton itself was extremely difficult and required a lot of manual labor. Obviously with labor, you need to pay your workers. This was part of the reason that tobacco and rice were two more important cash crops in colonial times, they were both cheaper and easier. However, in 1794 that all changed when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. This invention sped up the process tremendously. This was the key factor to the turning point in the cotton revolution.
Before the advent of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, plantations in the Antebellum South experimented with several crops in attempt to gain wealth, but nothing seemed to work. The climate was too hot for tobacco, yet not hot enough for sugar cane (Huff 36). Both long-staple and short- staple cotton were experimented, but were found unable to be prof...
Do you know when and how the growth of cotton was produced and what made it faster and more profitable for people to buy this product. Well i do this cotton was grown and picked by african slaves in the South. The word Antebellum means “before war”, but in this time conflict and tension still remained in the south. This included the rise of cotton and mills, the impact of cotton on society, and the impact of cotton on the slaves.
In the South, cotton became a profitable cash crop and by the mid-19th century had become America’s leading export (History.com Staff, 2010). Cotton was an ideal crop in many ways, however cotton plants contained seeds that were difficult and labor intensive to separate. In 1794, Eli Whitney invented a machine that would greatly speed up the process of removing the seeds from cotton fibers. The cotton “gin” effectively and efficiently removed the seeds from cotton plants, enabling operators to produce fifty times more cotton that workers could by hand (Tindall, 20121109). Agricultural developments alongside interconnected railroad infrastructure increased productivity and volume, however, technology changed the economic direction in even more profound ways engendering the factory system.