Cotton Gin Research Paper

Words: 1055
Pages: 5

Cotton gin had a positive impact because, without it, the United States would not be the superpower it is today. The inventor of the cotton gin Eli Whitney is a Massachusetts native. Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin from Thomas Jefferson, the secretary of state at that time. Cotton gin removes seeds faster than it would take slaves to remove the seeds from a staple of cotton. However, the cotton gin was a faster alternative to remove seeds, but it still had to be hand-cranked. Slaves averaged a pound of seeds from the staple daily, while the cotton gin averaged 50 pounds of seeds a day. Once the cotton gin was invented each decade, it had doubled the cotton production. Before the cotton gin, the seeds had to be picked from the …show more content…
A downside was that the cotton gin increased slave labor and the demand for more slaves because the competitors didn't have enough money. This forced plantation owners to compete with plantation owners who used cotton gins, causing slaves to work harder. Slaves worked harder to keep up with how fast the cotton gins worked. The cotton gin had increased slave labor because land owners that used the cotton gin, had slaves plant the cotton while the cotton gin removed the seeds. The South had to maintain the amount of cotton production, so they purchased more slaves. Eli Whitney's invention caused southern landowners to invest in slaves while also buying and using the cotton gin. (BODY PARAGRAPH 2) Slaves were needed even more now as cotton was being produced and exported at a fast pace. The amount of need for slaves had decreased after the revolution and the start of the “political death” on January 1st, 1803. Throughout the whole revolution, the number of African slaves imported widely was between 292,000 and 650,000. One-third of the number of slaves that were imported during the revolution were taken to Virginia and Maryland. These states had a big need for slaves because they were big on cotton production. More than half of the total number of slaves during the revolution had gone to South Carolina and Georgia. The slave importation went in …show more content…
The second wave of importation occurred between 1751 and 1775, within this time 115,000 Africans were shipped. Two-thirds of the second wave of slaves went to South Carolina. The third wave of slave importation happened between the years 1780 and 1790. Louisiana was a main receiver of the slaves during the 3rd wave. Although many of the slaves were under Spanish authority, planters and merchants had purchased 25,000 Africans to develop sugar plantations. The fourth and final wave occurred in the 19th century, and tens of thousands of Africans were imported. Ten thousand slaves were illegally imported; these slaves were imported through Charleston ports. Suppression was still effective after 1820. There were 310,000 Africans that were imported to colonial and early national North America, these slaves had indications of distribution. The demand in the early national period had exploded after pent-up slave demand. The pent-up slave demand happened in the first decade of the 19th century. The pent-up demand exploded after they restricted the slave trade. This caused the slave demand to explode and made the need for slaves to increase gradually. Between 1803 and 1907 over 55,000 Africans were transported to Jeffersonian America. The slave trade began in 1700, and