The+Growth+of+Slaves+in+the+1800's


 * The Growth of Slavery in the 1800’s**

The demand for slavery began to decrease because of many reasons. One, for example, is that most crops were becoming very slow for plantation owner profits. When the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney, the production of cotton took much less time and slaves were needed for the work on the very efficient cotton gin. Slaves could now very quickly remove the seeds of cotton. This increased slavery mainly in the South and West.

The Cotton Gin was invented in 1793. A hand crank turned rollers with teeth that pulled the cotton through skinny slots, leaving out the seeds. The seeds then fall into a hopper, and another roller takes out the clean cotton from the first roller. This was very efficient, but slaves still needed to pick the cotton. This is a main reason why slavery expanded. Because of this newfound profit, many northerners began moving south so that they can take part in this great economic time.  Not all people found this to be good progress. Many people began to oppose slavery even more now. The South wanted to keep slavery and the North wanted to get rid of it. This conflict added to the growing tensions leading to the Civil War.