Eli Whitney’s invention helped give slavery a new life in the 1700s and 1800s (11). Eli Whitney was a mechanical engineer, who was the first to invent the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine that quickly and efficiently separates cotton fibers from their seeds (2). His machine moves like brush like teeth through the raw cotton, which makes the hard task go by faster. The cotton gin grew to produce a thousand pounds of cotton a day in the 18th century (11).
The cotton gin had a huge effect on slavery and the south. The north wanted slavery to end but it was carried out until 1865 due to the cotton industry (7). The south benefited the most because cotton thrived there and fastly became the world's largest producer of cotton (11). As the
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Between 1787 and 1808, 250,000 new slaves arrived in the U.S. because of the cotton boom (2). Plantation owners were involved in the slave trade which was the transporting and selling humans as slaves. When selling the slaves, prices varied depending on the person's skin color, sex, age and location (3). In 1834, a man named Joseph Ingraham wrote about the slave trade said that “to sell cotton in order to buy negroes—to make more cotton to buy more negroes, ‘ad infinitum,’ is the aim and direct tendency of all the operations of the thorough going cotton planter; his whole soul is wrapped up in the pursuit (3).” Families were separated because of the slave trade. Plantation owners would and could easily sell husbands from wives, parents from children, and brothers from sisters (12). A women named Mary Armstrong, who experienced slavery said this about her owner and the separating for families "so mean he never would sell the man and woman and (children) to the same one. He'd sell the man here and the woman there and if (there were children) he'd sell them someplace else …show more content…
Slaves were treated like property that plantation owners could do whatever they wanted with. In the south, slaves were a symbol of success ,so, plantation owners wanted as much slaves as they could afford (7). Plantation owners with 20 or more slaves were considered the true upper class (7). When slaves arrived to a plantation they would usually have to build their own houses. Most of the time the houses were made out of wooden shacks with dirt floors (13). When the slaves would go to bed they would sleep on straws or old rags which didn’t provide any warmth (4). The plantation owners provide the clothes for the slaves when they got to the plantation. Unfortunately, the clothes were really bad material and didn’t fit properly (4). Slaves were expected to work morning to night in the cotton fields. During harvest season, most of the slaves would work a 18 hour day (10). A women named Sarah Ashley, who experienced the slavery, said “I used to have to pick cotton and sometimes I pick 300 pound and tote it a mile to the cotton house. Some pick 300 to 800 pound cotton and have to tote the bag the whole mile to the gin. If they didn’t do they work they get whip till they have blister on them... (14).” It was very exhausting, hot and tiring work to work in the cotton fields. It was also a lot of work physically with no breaks. Even kids at the age of 12 would be almost working the same jobs as the adults (10). Slaves that got
Slaves were put into all types of work. “The 125 slaves on one plantation, for instance, included a butler, two waitresses, a nurse, a dairymaid, a gardener, ten carpenters, and two shoe-makers. Other plantations counted among their slaves engineers, blacksmiths, and weavers, as well as domestic workers from cooks to coachman” (Foner 425). Some slaves were put to fuel the steamboats by cutting woods, labor in coal and iron mines, in the southern ports the slaves manned the docks, also laid the railroad tracks. The local authorities put slaves to construct and repair bridges, roads and other facilities.
Eli Whitney invented a machine called the cotton gin. This used a wire screen in combination with small hooks to pull the cotton fibers though. The gin in cotton gin is short for the word engine. The cotton gin could clean more cotton in a few hours than a couple of workers could in one day (Birking). When Whitney arrived i gorga cleaning green cotton was still a hand jod.
Escaping slavery while trying to keep track of young children was vey risky. Because of this, the men of the family would escape and often times, leave their wives and children behind. Doing so put his entire family at risk. The wife would most likely get a severe whipping because the masters knew that they knew where their husbands were. The master would often times sell the family off to someone new just in case the man of the family decided to come back for the rest of the
Life of slaves meant working basically non stop until sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for a person to eat. Plantation slaves lived in small shacks with a dirt floor and little or no furniture. Life on large plantations with a cruel overseer was
They constantly worked from dawn to sunset. They had to make food for the entire plantation slaves which left them no time to rest. Some of their tasks included working on the plantation, farms and fields, and in the main house. They had to constantly keep mental count
The working conditions were frustrating and stressful. Genders and different cultures were not treated equally and nicely. The living conditions were terrible and in one small little hut made of grass you would have to share it with like forty people. It was very unsanitary and they had to give up living with family and in their own house for three years and little pay.(stated from the article “Plantation Life”)
The majority of slaves bought were used for labor in the owner’s plantation, only a selected few worked on the domestic duties of the household. The slave's job type determined their quality of food, clothing and shelter they would be provided. Domestic slaves worked in the house and their duties included: cleaning, cooking and tending to their owners demands. Working inside the house these slaves were usually better feed, given hand me down from their owners and living quarters were usually within the home and nicer than field slaves received. Field slaves would tend to the needs of the plantation which included harvesting crops, animal care and any outdoor chore that need to be completed.
The jobs that the slaves had were undoubtedly difficult. However, the slaves on plantations had jobs that usually required much more heavy physical labor. “For the bulk of the southern population-free and slave-engaged in agriculture, life was mean and labor was
Slavery had a tremendous impact on all aspects of Virginia. It helped keep Virginia afloat and at the same time slowly helped its downfall. It affected the economy, social, and class system. By having the slaves work the plantations, it let the owners keep the money which in a way made slavery the mainstay of the economy. When the cotton gin was created it became the core of the social and political aspects of
It also talks about the job that was available, and compared the cost to picking cotton (Eichenlaub,1pg). "Moving northward and to the Mid-west, the number of Negroes leaving the various southern states more or less coincided with the degree of harshness under which they attempted to live and
No matter your stance at the time, one thing became clear: socially, politically and economically, slavery was the fabric of American success and gave birth to the Old South as we know it today. 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.
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.
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.
The slaves’ men had to do manual labor in the sugar plantation throughout the day and guarding the same at night. They had no rights of getting an education since their masters presumed that doing so will enlighten them. The slaves were denied the fundamental principle of life such as education, the right of having a family. For instance, Stuart was the only black student in the
Slaves usually worked in the fields all day and some worked in the house of the owner of the farm or plantation. “Each worker could raise about three acres of tobacco, but it was expensive to buy or lease a slave. The farmer had to balance the cost of an extra worker against the profit he would gain from planting more acres of tobacco. Small planters usually had fewer than five slaves, including children” (“What Was the Role of Children on an 18th-century Virginia Farm?”). Because there were few slaves on many of the smaller farms it was hard for slaves to make families.