The Slave EconomyPage 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.

Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

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.