Cotton Gin Abolition

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Summary Slavery was dwindling to an end. The South didn’t feel the need to have so many slaves, until the Cotton Gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1794. This single invention transformed America in the world’s leading exporter of cotton. The Cotton Gin was a device that would allow the process of removing spiky cotton seeds from the actual product much faster. The device worked by adding the cotton with the seeds to the device. Then as it went through the machine, the seeds would be sifted from the cotton fibers with the help of a mesh. The mesh was designed to be big enough just for fibers to run through it easily, but on the other hand, it was small enough to stop the seeds. As soon as this invention was released for Americans, many Southerners …show more content…
However, many Southern plantation owners weren’t willing to go out and to pick off all the cotton by themselves. This was the reason why the demand for African slaves changed overnight. Since the Cotton Gin could speed up the process of removing the seeds from the cotton, plantation owners needed more slaves to work out in the fields to harvest their crops. The Cotton Gin gave the South a new purpose for using slaves. But, as the demand for slaves increased dramatically, so did the amount of abolitionists. In time, abolitionists from the North and a select few Southerners, would emerge to advocate the abolition of slavery because of the realization that slavery was immoral. Moreover, it can be seen that the impacts that the Cotton Gin had on America and its economy was an indirect factor that led America into the Civil War. Other things to know about the Cotton Gin was that even though Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin, many Southern farmers built their own versions of the Cotton Gin. These Cotton Gins were actually more efficient than the model that Whitney patented. In addition, this was problematic for Whitney because he wasn’t making any money off of his …show more content…
The slave trade in America would have dwindled to almost nothing because prior to the invention of the cotton gin, slavery was becoming less and less popular in the South, where it was most prominent. Along with the decline of slaves in the South, the Southern economy would’ve along taken its toll on America. Because of how badly plantation owners drained the soil of its nutrition, cotton would maintain a presence in Southern society but wouldn’t become a cash crop. This is because the workload that cotton demanded from the pickers were too much and too inefficient to maintain a well lifestyle. In addition, if the cotton gin was never invented, America would’ve taken a longer time to reach its own Industrial Revolution. Because there is no surplus of cotton coming in from the South, it would be senseless for the North to build factories if there was nothing to mass produce. However, not only would there not be that many factories in America, but also women and children wouldn’t have been able to really get into the workforce. Factories produced a surplus of jobs for many Americans, but with an absence of factories, women and children would not have to be working back breaking shifts. The Republican Party would’ve also never formed because if the cotton gin was never invented, slavery would’ve had a lower profile which could’ve made its way west.
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