Southern Plantation Owners Used "King " to Justify Slavery By USHistory.org, adapted by Newsela staff on 05.16.17 Word Count 761 Level 950L

"The cotton planter and his pickers" is written on this photograph taken by H. Tees in West Point, . It is a postcard showing a white man holding a shotgun and a dog, with African-American men, women and children in a cotton field in 1908, more than 40 years after the Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished. From the Library of Congress

Cotton is sticky when it's removed from the plant. Seeds make up two-thirds of raw cotton, and pulling them out is pretty tough. Throughout the 1700s, cotton production was expensive, because it took so much labor to pick out the seeds. All that changed with the invention of the cotton gin. The machine combed through cotton to separate out the seeds. By the end of the 1700s, there was a huge demand for cotton fabric, and with the cotton gin Southern plantations could now supply the world's longing for cotton.

Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin

The man who would make cotton king was the son of a Massachusetts farmer. After graduating from Yale University, traveled south. While staying at a plantation in Savannah, Georgia in 1792, Whitney created the device that changed the world. Whitney built a machine that moved stiff, brush-like teeth though the raw cotton. The teeth removed a very

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 1 high percentage of the seeds. Before this, it took up to 10 hours to produce a pound of cotton, with very little profit. The cotton gin ultimately was able to produce a thousand pounds of cotton per day at a very low cost.

In the year the cotton gin was invented, the United States exported about 138,000 pounds of cotton to other countries. Two years later, it exported more than 10 times that much, 1,600,000 pounds. Before the gin, leaders of the country thought that slavery would gradually disappear. This idea changed as soon as slaves could be used to grow millions of pounds of cotton for markets all over the world. Eli Whitney never made a cent on his invention. It was widely copied before it could be patented. However, he developed the milling machine to make rifles. This also made it easier to manufacture other things, and did much to create the factory system in the North.

The South digs in its heels on slavery

The sudden explosion of the cotton industry gave slavery a new purpose. Before, some Southern slave owners, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, had seen slavery as an evil that would eventually be swept away. But with the rise of cotton, this idea was considered old-fashioned, and people saw slavery as necessary for the South. Cotton became king. It became the foundation of the Southern economy, Southern culture, and Southern pride.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 2 Defenders of slavery brought in arguments from religion, from history, and from economics. They even claimed that slavery was a social good.

Defenders of slavery argued that the suddenly ending slavery would kill the South's economy. Cotton would collapse, the crop would dry up in the fields, and rice would no longer be profitable.

Making up arguments for slavery

Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment. There would be uprisings, bloodshed and chaos. They argued to continue the situation as it was. This meant wealth and stability for slaveholders and all free people who lived in a society built on slavery.

Defenders of slavery argued that slavery had existed throughout history. They called it the natural state of mankind. The Greeks had slaves, the Romans had slaves, and the English had slavery until 1833.

Defenders of slavery said that in the Old Testament of the Bible, Abraham owned slaves. They said that in the New Testament, people had slaves, and Jesus never spoke out against it.

Defenders of slavery pointed to American law. It declared that slaves were property, and the Constitution protected slaveholders' rights to their property.

Claiming that people benefited from being slaves

Defenders of slavery argued that slavery brought Christianity to black people. According to this argument, slavery was a good thing for the enslaved. John C. Calhoun was the vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. The politician claimed that slavery civilized and improved blacks "not only physically, but morally and intellectually."

Defenders of slavery argued that slaves were better cared for than poor people in Europe and workers in the North. They said that slave owners protected and helped their slaves when they were sick and old. If free workers lost their jobs, they were on their own.

The South formed its society around slavery, and came up with a set of arguments to support it. Southerners held even firmer to these arguments as the country moved closer to the Civil War.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. 3