Did the cotton gin increase slavery?

Answer 1

Before the invention of the cotton gin, the production of cotton for textile was very labor-intensive and uneconomical. The way a cotton boll grows, the fibers are interspersed with the seeds. To make useful material, the seeds would have to be picked from the bolls by hand which expended a great deal of man-hours. The cotton gin allowed cotton fibers to be separated from the seeds mechanically without a great deal of supervision. This allowed for industrial scale production of cotton at a time when texile mills in Great Britain were also becoming mechanized. The demand for cotton and the ability to process cotton in quantity meant that cotton needed to be produced in volume. Slaves were imported as a means of providing the manpower necessary to plant and harvest the large quantity of cotton.

Answer 2

The cotton gin was a huge advance in the efficiency of processing raw cotton into a usable product. It was still necessary for the cotton to be picked by hand, which is a labor intensive job. The cotton gin made cotton farming more profitable, and the more cotton farming there was, the more cheap labor was needed, which in the period before the Civil War, came in the form of slaves.

Answer 3

yes it did because it was the main crop in the south

Answer 4

As more cotton was being made essentially it created a chain effect- where the south had increased its exports and so to keep the flow the south had to also increase its demand for slaves

Answer 5

it increased by, having to make more cotton they needed more slaves to do the work