The Cotton Revolution and Slavery
In the period between the 1830s and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the American South began to rapidly expand its population and economy (Locke & Wright, 2019). These events had been set in motion by the increasingly expanding system of communication, trade, and production connecting the Americas with Europe and Asia. The South actively kept up with the modernizing world, and an influx of investors, inventors, and settlers were soon setting camps in the South. Following the discovery of Petit Gulf Cotton and subsequently, the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1794 changed the entire course of history for the South. Besides, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the Natives out of their lands, allowing “the federal government to survey, divide and auction off” vast tracts of fertile lands at relatively cheap labor.
Consequently, it triggered a rush of thousands of planters and investors into the Cotton Belt. By the following decade, Petit Gulf Cotton had been planted throughout the South. While slavery had long existed in the South, the Cotton Revolution magnified its legalization and made it a way of life. The vast tract of lands growing cotton required a steady, cheap labor source, which could be obtained through slavery.
Slavery became synonymous with the Southern economy as slaves became the primary means of production (Locke & Wright, 2019). African Americans held in bondage were forced to work in the cotton plantations, and their value became attached to the value of their work. An enslaver, James Ingraham, joked about the South’s economy being “to sell cotton to buy Negroes-to make more cotton to buy Negroes, ad infinitum.” Slaves were exploited and considered as property to be owned and commanded around by the enslavers. The wealthier the enslavers got, the more land they accumulated to produce, the more African Americans they enslaved to work in the plantations.
Slavery was intertwined with inhumanity. The slaves worked under extreme weather conditions and had to put up with a lot of horrors. The heat of the sun and the pain of the lash became a norm. They died in numbers from mistreatments, sicknesses, and being torn apart. The betrayals and suffering, however, began bringing people together. They communicated among themselves and began to protest and riot. Actions such as breaking a hoe, running a wagon off the road, or running away were embraced as a show of resistance.
The enslaved people suffered segregation. The enslavers were in constant worry that the slaves would revolt against them and, thus, sought to suppress them. Thomas Jefferson once suggested that the enslaved people be freed but then colonized in another country, thus avoiding coexisting with them in the same country. To many capitalists in the South, suppressing slaves was economically viable. It ensured peace and order, which was ironic because the slaves’ rights were suppressed and treated as commodities without dignity. The slave masters assumed that the blacks had to be enslaved to keep them from violence.
The family was in the middle of their culture (Locke & Wright, 2019) among the enslaved peoples. The concept of family was important to the slaves because it gave them a sense of identity and brought them together amidst the horrors they were going through at the enslavers’ hands. Besides, they were able to pass down their traditions, religious and cultural beliefs and celebrate them. Children born to the slaves were named after deceased relatives.
Marriages between slaves were defined and allowed by their enslavers (Locke & Wright, 2019). Even then, the marriages in most cases were disrupted. Following the constitutional ban on importing slaves in 1808, many marriages were broken up, and partners sold or forced to migrate to discourage marriages in the plantations.
Works Cited
Locke, J. L., & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp: A massively collaborative open U. S. History textbook, Vol. 1: To 1877.