Cotton And Slavery

The antebellum south was built on the success of cotton. Cotton is a fiber used in many products, such as fabric and paper. Throughout the 1790's, the production of tobacco declined because of soil depletion and diminishing value; simultaneously, in Europe the fabric industry was growing, creating an international demand for cotton clothing ("The Cotton Economy and Slavery"). When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, this provided the South with the machinery for the expansion in the global economy and also brought back slavery.
According to the Britannia.com, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin machine in 1793, it was designed to clean "cotton of its seeds". Eli Whitney was an inventor who focused on reducing the cost of manufacturing , customize parts to make the assembling process faster and make devices easier to repair. On a boat to South Carolina he met the widow of Nathanael Greene, a famous General in the American Revolutionary war and was then invited to come to her house. While there he learnt of the problems associated with growing and harvesting cotton. Cotton was not grown very often because it's production was very low and very labor intensive. Thus, Eli Whitney being the innovator that he was,
As mentioned in the "Cotton and Slavery in America" video, by the 1860's the Southern states were providing 75% of the world's cotton. Cotton did not only make the south wealthy, it boosted the entire US economy and helped fueled industrial production in Europe as well. Cotton became such a force that the South began thinking of seceding from the US, which lead to the term, "King Cotton" to demonstrate that the South could be successful, ("Cotton and Slavery"). This communicated to the North that an independent Confederacy would be economically viable through cotton