The Slave Economy Page 479
Views on Slavery
• Slavery had been a part of American life since colonial days.
• Some people thought slavery was wrong.
• Most Northerners once thought that all Southerners owned slaves.
The Slave Economy
• Southern Slaveholders in 1860:
–75% owned no slaves
–5% owned 1 slave
–13% owned 2-9 slaves
–4% owned 10-19 slaves
–3% owned 20 or more slaves
The Slave Economy
• Most southern families could not make money using enslaved workers.
• The cost of feeding, clothing, and housing slaves was too great.
• In 1860 only one white Southern family in four owned slaves.
• Wealthy plantation owners owned more than half the slaves in the South.
What Did Slaves Do?
• Miners
• Carpenters
• Factory Workers
• Skilled Workers
• House Servants
• Field Slaves
Growing Cotton
• Cotton was a difficult crop to grow.
• Once the cotton was harvested, workers had to remove small seeds from the white cotton fibers.
• This was a slow, tiring job that took much time.
• Many plantation owners chose to grow crops that required less time.
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
• In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a machine called the cotton engine.
• The cotton gin (as it was called) removed the seeds from the cotton fibers much faster that workers could.
• This one change in technology led to many other changes.
King Cotton
• With the cotton gin, cotton could be cleaned and prepared for market in less time.
• Planters could grow and sell more cotton and make more money.
• Southern planters sold the cotton to textile mills in the North and in Europe.
Worldwide Demand for Cotton
• Demand for cotton made Southern planters and Northern textile-mill owners rich.
• It also created more demand for slaves.• Planters needed slaves to plant the seeds,
weed the fields, pick the cotton, and run the cotton gins.
• Without slaves, the end of all things would soon come.