FREE ESSAY ON COTTON GIN

COTTON GIN

In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a very important machine. It was the cotton gin. This very
simple machine removes seeds from cotton plants at the least fifty times faster than a
worker could by hand. Since several southern states had soil that was ideal for growing
cotton and all of the new textile mills in Great Britain and the Northeast had a great
demand for cotton it suddenly became a very profitable crop. 
The cotton gin changed life for the people in the South. Much of their hard times ended
and the economy of the South grew rapidly. People who owned plantations in the Old South
grew very rich. Other planters however moved westward to start new plantations. This in
effect caused the population of Alabama and Mississippi to soar. However along with the
greater demand for cotton came an even greater demand for slaves. So southerners
continued to bring slaves in to the United States and by 1860 the slave population had
reached over four million. As more cotton farms appeared in the western section of the
south the slave trade became a very large business there. Also even in 1860 only around
one-fourth of southern families owned slaves.