Cotton's Role In The Civil War

Although the “free” North abolished slavery, the idea of white supremacy was dominant. ‘“...We are of another race and he is inferior. Let him know his place - and keep it.’” (Doc B) The spread of the abolition of slavery throughout the United States began in 1777 through 1865 and sparked the limits of determining a black person’s freedom. The debate is still present: How restricted were blacks in the North, regarding their social, political, and economic freedoms? Actually, free blacks did not have a significant amount of freedom in that time period, especially concerning the listed areas, as they were all severely limited.

Approximately three Southern states change their approach on forced labor without compensation, African American slaves would work for an amount of cash that was, generally, given to the masters of the slaves; However, some of these African American were freed and, therefore, kept all the earnings. In the mid 1800’s southern states, slavery was progressively headed towards salary base employment which would boost the states economically. Furthermore, Northern states were already using such economic structure to boost labor in the industrial region, which led to divide the country into sectors of specialized commodities. Southern state were no longer the only major contributor of economic growth, the Northern states were in large in foreign demands for cotton in the years of 1815-1843 as industries boomed in

The Civil War was caused by three main reasons are economic differences, interpretation of Constitution, and moral beliefs.

This change means we might see a time when this “Southern burden” is lifted off the shoulders of the South if we could forget the civil war. So far though we haven’t been able to let the Civil War go. The South’s economy also has a lot to do with its burdens. The fact that they were a slave economy is a major reason they have all these burdens. The South’s agriculture ability was dying out though, the soil was being eroded and wasted. This meant the slave system some time would have to end, but at the time, slavery was booming. These slaveholding planters were raging capitalist, they knew how to get rich through slavery. The cotton boom in the South seemed limitless around 1820, it is comparable now to oil today. Cotton production doubled every decade for four decades and was America’s largest export. The South was the world’s largest exporter of cotton, supplying much of the textile industry. This allowed people to become wealthy after what seemed like a day. About a third of the people in the South had some sort of slave ownership, this meant that much of the south was poor and sometimes didn’t even own

After reviewing the reading, it’s very clear that the southern colonies would be the best place to settle. I would become a farmer because of the business of it. To be more exact I would live in Virginia even though Carolina happen to be more smart when it came to basically everything else than any other colonie. Most importantly why I would chose to be here is because they had access to the cash crops of the time, Tobacco. It allowed the lowest of society to become something and to become very wealthy. It turned the rag to riches. It was perfect for people that wanted to change their past and to have a new start. South tobacco farm owners became the most wealthy and self sufficient from the government. The south had popular trading ports that

Invented by Eli WHitney in 1793, because of the cotton gin it reduced the amount of time and cost of separating the cotton seeds from white fiber. Due to the cotton gin, cotton farming became much more profitable in the South. Because of the cotton gin, the demand of the cotton grew and increased slavery. There was economic consequences due to the cotton gin and the increase of the cotton

The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. Versions of a cotton gin have existed since the first century in which single rollers were used to try to separate the seed from the cotton. Over time, a double roller system was invented. Finally, in 1793, the version invented by Whitney actually used teeth-like projections to remove the seed from the cotton. A belt and pulley system then separated the lint from the seeds. It revolutionized the cotton industry by making it more profitable. A machine was now used to remove seeds from cotton rather than having to remove them by hand. This allowed more cotton to be processed quicker which made production of cotton more efficient for farmers. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, slavery was actually dying out in the southern United States due to how labor intensive the removal of seeds from cotton had become. Due to increased productivity, cotton became a cash crop in the South

In the early 1800s, the south—and most of the north, for that matter—used a subsistence economy, where crops and goods were made locally by families for themselves and their communities. Family farms were basically forced to use a subsistence economy, simply because the lack of fast transportation. If they attempted to ship their crops to other ports and towns where it was needed, the crops would rot well before they ever made it. In the south, cotton was made using slave labor, but the harvests weren’t as large as they could be. The process of harvesting was slow—as it was with many crops across the north and south—and the wield was decent.

At the center of the entire institution of slavery, and central to its defense, was the economic domination it provided a young country in international markets. In the early 19th century, cotton was a popular commodity and overtook sugar as the main crop produced by slave labor. The production of cotton became the nation’s top priority; America supplied ¾ of the cotton supply to the entire world. At the expense of the freedom of an

Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this. They believed that an economy based on cotton and slavery would continue to prosper". This shows that Slaves and cotton were very important to the Southerners.

According to Eric Foner is his book, Give Me Liberty!, even though the market revolution and westward expansion occurred simultaneously in the North and the South, their combined effects heightened the nation’s sectional divisions. In some way, the most dynamic feature of the American economy wins the first thirty years of the nineteenth century was the rise of the Cotton Kingdom. It all started during the industrial revolution, which centered on factories producing cotton textiles with water-powered spinning and weaving machinery. All of these factories produced a massive demand for cotton.

In the antebellum period of South Carolina, cotton took complete control. Both Inland and Island farmers farmers relied on cotton thanks to the textile industry. After the invention named the cotton gin was invented, the cotton industry was changed forever. This new era had a good effect on the trade between other countries/states and the South. However, these new advancements ended up affecting the majority of the population, the slaves, the worst. More and more plantations showed up, defining this plantation life as a whole new culture for the South. Overall, thanks to trade between plantations and textile mills, the¨king¨ (cotton) spread over half the world's population, affecting them as well.

While states were busy governing only their people in the first years of the United States of America, the federal government couldn’t easily trade with countries for goods. Once the constitution united the states, American factories saw a boom in development with the fuel of the industrial revolution. During this time, the south profited from labor intensive crops such as tobacco, rice, and cotton. The southern states dramatically thrived with the new invention of the cotton gin. Farms were now able produce a significantly more of cotton in less time. By the 1870s, northern factories were continuing to be the fundamental economic source while the south lost the root of their economy. With slaves free and many farms damaged in the Civil War, the south struggled to regain the production they had once before. Farmers resorted to sharecropping or wage labor to start up their plantations once again. The north saw tremendous growth in their factories and trade between 1776 and 1870, but the south grew their huge cotton planation cottons only to have their fundamental labor source taken away, leaving the south in a time of reconstruction by the

The Southern and Northern states differentiate on many issues, which ultimately led them towards a Civil War. There stood deep social, economic, and political disparities between the North and the South. These modifications stemmed from the understanding of the United States Constitution on both sides. In the end, most of these disputes about the rights of states directed to the Civil War. There existed reasons other than slavery on behalf of the South 's breakaway. The demonstrations of division in America coexisted many: utopian societies, clashes over public space, backlash alongside immigrants, urban rebellions, black demonstration, and Indian oppositions. America was a separated land in need of change with the South in the biggest demand. The South trusted heavily on agriculture, equally opposed to the North, which was vastly populated and an industrialized union. The South produced cotton, which remained its main cash crop and countless Southerners knew that hefty reliance on slave labor would damage the South ultimately, but their forewarnings were not regarded. The South was constructed on a totalitarian system.

The source describes the economy of the South, saying, “By 1860 the economies of the Deep South and the Upper South had developed in different ways. Both parts of the South were agricultural…(p.423)” This explains that, as a whole, the South focused on farming and selling crops to support the economy. It also says that cotton was very important. The source states, “Cotton was not the only crop grown in the South, but it was the crop that fueled the Southern economy.(p.423)” It became the main crop when the cotton gin was created. This machine was able to clean “...cotton fibers much more quickly than could be done by hand.(p.423)” As a result, this crop was in even higher demand. The farmers and plantation owners wanted to grow and sell more. To do this, they would need more workers to plant, harvest, and care for the plants. This led to the Southern economy depending on both the cotton and African Americans who were enslaved to farm it. On the other hand, the North did not have the geography in which farming could support the economy. Instead it had many rivers and streams. So, the Northerners depended on factories. It was in these factories that the cotton from the South could be developed. The factories contained machines run by the waterways that would perform tasks like “...cloth making, such as spinning.(p.383)” Workers were also needed to run the machines. But, since farming was so difficult with little suitable soil, many “...people were willing to leave their farms to find work elsewhere.(p.383)” In conclusion, the North and South had differences in the kind of work needed to maintain the