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When the cotton gin was invented it caused the growth in cotton and slaves. Before the gin a slave had to handpick the seeds out of the raw cotton bole. Raw cotton is very dense and the seeds are small so picking them out was labor intensive. The cotton gin allowed the seeds to be removed by a turning of a lever with a brush pulling the cotton apart. More cotton could be grown and processed which meant the need for more slaves to work in the cotton growing, picking, and processing. The amount of bales produced equals the growth of the number of slaves. By 1864 there were 4 million slaves in the southern plantations.

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8y ago

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