what was the impact of king cotton

The spread of “King Cotton

” impacted the Southern way of life politically, economically, and socially. It contributed to a political divide between the North and the South over the issue of slavery, the expansion of the plantation economy in the South, and the often inhumane treatment of slaves.

Full Answer

What was the significance of King Cotton?

King Cotton, phrase frequently used by Southern politicians and authors prior to the American Civil War, indicating the economic and political importance of cotton production.

What were the effects of the cotton Kingdom?

The cotton kingdom also brought more people to the South. Getting rich by growing raising a cotton crop where slaves did all the hard labor was attractive to many farmers. Causing great growth in the areas new slave owning states such as Texas quickly grew.

What impact did King Cotton have on the spread of slavery in the South?

Growing more cotton meant an increased demand for slaves. Slaves in the Upper South became incredibly more valuable as commodities because of this demand for them in the Deep South. They were sold off in droves. This created a Second Middle Passage, the second largest forced migration in America's history.

Why did cotton become known as King Cotton in the early 1800s?

The title, King Cotton, comes from the fact that cotton was the major export of the United States in the early 1800s just prior to the Civil War time frame. By the 1850s, the cotton grown, shipped, and sold by southerners was worth more than all the rest of America's exports put together.

How cotton affected the Civil War?

Indeed, it was the South's economic backbone. When the southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America in 1861, they used cotton to provide revenue for its government, arms for its military, and the economic power for a diplomatic strategy for the fledgling Confederate nation.

How did the cotton gin impact slavery?

While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for enslaved labor to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for enslavers that it greatly increased their demand for both land and enslaved labor.

How did cotton affect the economy?

Cotton accounted for over half of all American exports during the first half of the 19th century. The cotton market supported America's ability to borrow money from abroad. It also fostered an enormous domestic trade in agricultural products from the West and manufactured goods from the East.

Why did King Cotton fail the South?

Ironically, the Confederacy's King Cotton strategy would fail because the arrogance-feeding harvests of the late 1850s and 1860 had given English textile factories great stockpiles on the eve of the war. The blockade- and embargo-fostered cotton famine would not begin to bite until 1862, when it was too late.

How did cotton cause the Civil War?

Suddenly cotton became a lucrative crop and a major export for the South. However, because of this increased demand, many more slaves were needed to grow cotton and harvest the fields. Slave ownership became a fiery national issue and eventually led to the Civil War.

When did cotton become popular?

Arab merchants brought cotton cloth to Europe about 800 A.D. When Columbus discovered America in 1492, he found cotton growing in the Bahama Islands. By 1500, cotton was known generally throughout the world.

When did King Cotton start?

James Hammond, a southern plantation owner, and U.S. Senator extolled Southern power. In his speech to the United States Senate on March 4, 1858, he put words to a long-brewing Southern philosophy: “Cotton is King.” On March 4, 1858, Hammond told the Senate "Cotton is King."

What was the result of the South's King Cotton Diplomacy?

Ultimately, cotton diplomacy did not work in favor of the Confederacy. In fact, the cotton embargo transformed into a self-embargo which restricted the Confederate economy. Ultimately, the growth in the demand for cotton that fueled the antebellum economy did not continue.

What effect did Eli Whitney's cotton gin have on the Southern economy?

The gin improved the separation of the seeds and fibers but the cotton still needed to be picked by hand. The demand for cotton roughly doubled each decade following Whitney's invention. So cotton became a very profitable crop that also demanded a growing slave-labor force to harvest it.

What was the cotton revolution?

The Cotton Revolution sparked the growth of an urban South, cities that served as southern hubs of a global market, conduits through which the work of enslaved people and the profits of planters met and funded a wider world.

What is a cotton gin and what does it do?

A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.

What developments led to the rise of the cotton Kingdom during the first half of the 19th century?

Advances in steam power and water travel revolutionized Southern farmers' and planters' ability to deseed, bundle, and move their products to ports popping up along the Atlantic seaboard. Indeed, by the end of the 1830s, cotton had become the primary crop not only of the Southwestern states, but of the entire nation.

What was King Cotton's purpose?

Robert McNamara. Updated January 31, 2019. King Cotton was a phrase coined in the years before the Civil War to refer to the economy of the American South. The southern economy was particularly dependent on cotton. And, as cotton was very much in demand, both in America and Europe, it created a special set of circumstances.

What countries increased cotton production to satisfy the British market?

Cotton growers in other countries, primarily Egypt and India, increased production to satisfy the British market.

What was the most common crop in the South after the Civil War?

Cotton Production After the Civil War. Though the war ended the use of enslaved labor in the cotton industry, cotton was still the preferred crop in the South. The system of sharecropping, in which farmers did not own the land but worked it for a portion of the profits, came into widespread use. And the most common crop in ...

What made cotton crops profitable?

And, of course, what made enormous cotton crops profitable was cheap labor, in the form of enslaved Africans. The picking of cotton fibers from the plants was very difficult to work which had to be done by hand. So the harvesting of cotton required an enormous workforce.

What was the economic backbone of the South before the Civil War?

With cotton serving as the economic backbone of the South before the Civil War, the loss of enslaved labor that came with emancipation changed the situation. However, with the institution of sharecropping, which in practice was generally close to enslaved labor, the dependence on cotton as a primary crop continued well into the 20th century.

How much did the South export during the Civil War?

It has been estimated that cotton exports before the Civil War were approximately $192 million. In 1865, following the end of the war, exports amounted to less than $7 million.

What did the white settlers discover when they came to the South?

When white settlers came into the American South, they discovered very fertile farmland which turned out to be some of the best lands in the world for growing cotton.

How did slavery affect the economy?

As slavers took African slaves for granted and used them to satisfy their economic purposes. Surely it will make sense. Slave labor benefited the economy in many ways, such as agriculture, construction, slave owners and slave trade. We will start with how the Atlantic slave trade and labor had an impact in the beginning of the 18th century. One of the factors that funded the industrial revolution

What was the difference between the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War?

The Industrial Revolution caused incompability between the North and the South. The North relied on wage laborers with the new machine age economy while the South relied heavily on slaves. So, the North did not need slaves for their economy and fought to free the slaves. The South fought to in order to keep their cotton production going (Causing the

What are the similarities and differences between the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution?

the world has notable similarities and differences in areas such as the status of slavery, the way slavery influenced society, and the motivation for a civilization to practice slavery. These time periods are the Renaissance (1300-1650), the Industrial Revolution (1700-1900), and World Wars I and II (1914-1945). Renaissance The time period known today as the Renaissance was, as its name means, a “rebirth” of Greco-Roman values. It was a reaction against the Dark Ages and stood in stark contrast to

What were the three technological innovations that were a result of the market revolution?

are the steamboat, cotton gin and the telegraph. First off, John Finch invented the steamboat and Robert Fulton invented the first commercial steamboat in 1807 which affected the industrial revolution profoundly. It did so because now you can travel faster and ship your goods faster all by using steam. After Robert Fulton’s first trip, from new york city to albany, farmers

Why was the French Revolution inevitable?

The people of France were growing increasingly more upset with treatment they received from the upper and royal classes, mainly due to special privileges and weakened punishments for people of aristocratic families. Further fueling the fire, Louis XVI, the reigning king at the time, had recently levied a new land tax to solve France’s financial issues. The nation’s public banded together to eliminate unjust ruling in their country once and for

How did the Industrial Revolution begin?

Industrial and Industrial Revolution The industrial revolution began when they do the textile machines. Was a machine that can turned cotton into yarn. A inventor called Eli Whitney created a machine that cleaned cotton quickly. Cotton became most important source of America and biggest export. The government hired Eli Whitney to maken thousands of guns for them. At that time guns were made by hand.Whitney thought in a way to make them that was quicker and cheaper he used interchangeable parts. Then

What were the drawbacks of the King Cotton?

There were other drawbacks to the cotton industry, as well. The cotton gin made production potential greater, but it also made the labor source more unstable.

How did the cotton industry lead to the rise of commercial agriculture?

Not only did increased cotton milling result in an increased numbers of slaves, but planters also worked to augment their land ownership to make more money.

How did cotton gin affect the plantation?

The cotton gin made production potential greater, but it also made the labor source more unstable. The slaves required to operate the cotton gins could get sick or injured in great numbers, rendering plantation owners unable to harvest the crops growing on their land.

Why did the South plantation system become so large?

The already large slave system in the south became larger as slaves were smuggled into the country (slave importation had been deemed illegal from 1808 on).

How did the cotton boom affect the South?

Southerners were not the only ones benefiting from the cotton boom. Eighty percent of the south’s cotton went to England by way of northern shippers. These shippers were able to buy cotton wholesale and sell it at a premium, since England’s most important manufactured good was cotton cloth. One-fifth of the population in England earned a living from the manufacture of this cloth, and 75 percent of the cotton used in England’s production came from the United States. Since England was so dependent on the south’s cotton and the north’s transportation of it, both the north and the south were able to benefit heavily from this export.

Why did the Southerners buy out smaller plantations?

Also, large plantation owners were buying out smaller plantations to increase their land holdings, and those planters who were bought out moved westward. The motto of Southerners became “Cotton is King,” and they were happy to serve a ruler who provided such prosperity.

How many slaves did the South have in 1850?

In 1850, only a small minority—approximately 1,750 families—owned more than 100 slaves each. This small group of people carried significant political and social power.

What is the meaning of "cotton is king"?

Cotton is king: or, The culture of cotton, and its relation to Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce; to the free colored people; and to those who hold that slavery is in itself sinful. Cincinnati.

How much was cotton worth in 1860?

By 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $200 million a year.

How many bales of cotton were produced in 1850?

European and New England purchases soared from 720,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850, to nearly 5 million in 1860. Cotton production renewed demand for slavery after the tobacco market had declined in the late 18th century. The more cotton was grown, the more slaves were needed to harvest the crops.

Why did the Cotton Diplomacy fail?

Mason and John Slidell, completely failed because the Confederacy could not deliver its cotton, and the British economy was robust enough to absorb a depression in textiles from 1862–64.

What happened to the Confederate people when the war broke out?

When war broke out, the Confederate people, acting spontaneously without government direction, held their cotton at home, watching prices soar and an economic crisis hit Britain and New England, causing a backlash with British public opinion.

Why did the South blundered during the war?

Stanley Lebergott (1983) shows the South blundered during the war because it clung too long to faith in King Cotton. Because the South's long-range goal was a world monopoly of cotton, it devoted valuable land and slave labor to growing cotton instead of urgently needed foodstuffs.

Why did the Confederates refuse to export cotton to Europe?

When war broke out, the Confederates refused to allow the export of cotton to Europe. The idea was that this cotton diplomacy would force Europe to intervene. However, European states did not intervene, and following Abraham Lincoln 's decision to impose a Union blockade, the South was unable to market its millions of bales of cotton. The production of cotton increased in other parts of the world, such as India and Egypt, to meet the demand, and new profits in cotton were among the motives of the Russian conquest of Central Asia. A British-owned newspaper, The Standard of Buenos Aires, in cooperation with the Manchester Cotton Supply Association succeeded in encouraging Argentinian farmers to greatly increase production of cotton in Argentina and export it to the United Kingdom.

What did cotton production and slavery have to do with Great Britain?

As Dattel explains: “Britain, the most powerful nation in the world, relied on slave-produced American cotton for over 80 per cent of its essential industrial raw material. English textile mills accounted for 40 percent of Britain’s exports. One-fifth of Britain’s twenty-two million people were directly or indirectly involved with cotton textiles.”

How did the cotton gin affect the slaves?

As mentioned here in a previous column, the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased the productivity of cotton harvesting by slaves. This resulted in dramatically higher profits for planters, which in turn led to a seemingly insatiable increase in the demand for more slaves, in a savage, brutal and vicious cycle.

What was New England's economy dependent on?

In other words, on the eve of the Civil War, New England’s economy, so fundamentally dependent upon the textile industry , was inextricably intertwined, as Bailey puts it, “to the labor of black people working as slaves in the U.S. South.”.

How much cotton did Massachusetts use in 1860?

Most impressively of all, “New England mills consumed 283.7 million pounds of cotton, or 67 percent of the 422.6 million pounds of cotton used by U.S. mills in 1860.”.

What was the cause of the Civil War?

If there was one ultimate cause of the Civil War, it was King Cotton — black-slave-grown cotton — “the most important determinant of American history in the nineteenth century,” Dattel concludes. “Cotton prolonged America’s most serious social tragedy, slavery, and slave-produced cotton caused the American Civil War.”.

What was the most commonly used phrase describing the growth of the American economy in the 1830s and 1840s?

The most commonly used phrase describing the growth of the American economy in the 1830s and 1840s was “Cotton Is King.”. We think of this slogan today as describing the plantation economy of the slavery states in the Deep South, which led to the creation of “the second Middle Passage.”.

How did the South depend on cotton?

The South’s dependence on cotton was matched by its dependence on slaves to plant, tend, and harvest the cotton. Despite the rhetoric of the American Revolution that “all men are created equal,” slavery not only endured in the United States but was the very foundation of the country’s economic success. Cotton and slavery occupied a central place in the nineteenth-century economy. Importing slaves into the United States was outlawed by Congress in 1808, but owning slaves remained legal. At the same time, falling tobacco prices caused a shift to wheat farming in the upper South. Raising wheat was much less labor-intensive than tobacco – in fact, the yeoman farmers Jefferson had imagined spreading westward grew plenty of wheat with no slaves at all. Rather than competing with farmers in the North and Midwest, slaveowners in states like Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky went into the business of raising and selling slaves to the cotton plantations of the Deep South. As many as a million slaves were “sold down the river” in the domestic slave trade during the first half of the nineteenth century, generating immense fortunes for already-wealthy slaveowners in the upper South.

Why were steamboats important to the cotton industry?

Riverboats were already an important part of the transportation revolution due to their enormous freight-carrying capacity and ability to navigate shallow waterways. By 1837, there were over seven hundred steamships operating on the Mississippi and its tributaries. Major new ports developed at St. Louis, Memphis, Chattanooga, Shreveport, and other locations. By 1860, some thirty-five hundred riverboats were steaming in and out of New Orleans carrying an annual cargo of cotton worth $220 million (over $7 billion in 2019 dollars). Riverboats also came to symbolize the class and social distinctions of the antebellum age. While the decks carried the precious cargo, ornate rooms staterooms graced the interior where whites socialized in the ship’s saloons and dining halls while black slaves served them.

How did white southerners defend slavery?

White southerners defended slavery by criticizing wage labor in the North. They argued that the Industrial Revolution had brought about a new type of “wage slavery” that they claimed was far worse than the slave labor used on southern plantations. Defenders of slaveholding also lashed out directly at abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison for daring to call into question their way of life. Indeed, Virginians accused Garrison of instigating Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion. A Virginian named George Fitzhugh contributed to the defense of slavery with his 1854 book Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society. Fitzhugh argued that laissez-faire capitalism benefited only the quick-witted and intelligent, leaving the ignorant at a huge disadvantage. Slaveholders, he argued, took care of the ignorant slaves of the South. Southerners provided slaves with care from birth to death, Fitzhugh asserted, in stark contrast to the wage slavery of the North where workers were at the mercy of economic forces beyond their control. Fitzhugh’s ideas exemplified southern notions of paternalism.

What were the major slave revolts in the colonies?

Important slave rebellions in the British North American colonies and the United States included the New York Slave Revolt of 1712, the Samba Rebellion (1731), the Stono Rebellion (1739), the New York Slave Insurrection (1741), the Mina Conspiracy (1791), the Pointe Coupée conspiracy (1794), Gabriel’s conspiracy (1800), the Igbo Landing mass suicide (1803), the Chatham Manor Rebellion (1805), the German Coast Uprising (1811), George Boxley’s Rebellion (1815), Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy (1822), Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831), the Black Seminole Rebellion (1835-38), the Amistad ship seizure (1839), the Creole ship rebellion (1841), the Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation (1842), and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry (1859) which included an attempt to organize a slave rebellion. One of the most traumatic for white Southerners was the revolt led by a slave named Nat Turner in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner had suffered not only from personal enslavement, but also from the additional trauma of having his wife sold away from him. Bolstered by Christianity, Turner became convinced that like Christ, he should lay down his life to end slavery. Mustering his relatives and friends, he began the rebellion August 22, killing scores of whites in the county. Whites mobilized quickly and within forty-eight hours had brought the rebellion to an end. Shocked by Nat Turner’s Rebellion and aware that the use of slaves in Virginia was decreasing with the decline of tobacco, Virginia’s state legislature considered ending slavery in the state in order to provide greater security. In the end, legislators decided slavery would remain and that their state would continue to play a key role in the domestic slave trade.

How did the South sell slaves?

The selling of slaves was a major business enterprise throughout the history of the South, representing a key part of the economy. Beginning in the colonial period, when Thomas Jefferson wrote about the profits that could be made on the “natural increase” produced by enslaved women, white men invested substantial sums in slaves and carefully calculated the annual returns they could expect from selling a slave’s children. The domestic slave trade was highly profitable and between 1820 and 1860, white American traders sold a million or more slaves in the domestic slave market. Groups of slaves were transported by ship from places like Virginia, a state that specialized in raising slaves for sale, to New Orleans, where they were sold to planters in the Mississippi Valley. Other slaves made the overland trek in chains from older states like North Carolina to new and booming Deep South states like Alabama.

What did Garrison do to end slavery?

By 1838, the AASS had 250,000 members. They rejected colonization as a racist scheme and opposed the use of violence to end slavery. Influenced by evangelical Protestantism, Garrison and other abolitionists believed in moral suasion, a technique of appealing to the conscience of the public, especially slaveholders. Moral suasion relied on dramatic narratives, often from former slaves, about the horrors of slavery, arguing that slavery destroyed families, as children were sold and taken away from their mothers and fathers. Moral suasion resonated with many women, who condemned the sexual violence against slave women and the victimization of southern white women by adulterous husbands.

What was the largest slave market in the United States in the 1850s?

New Orleans had the largest slave market in the United States. A healthy young male slave in the 1850s could be sold for $1,000 (approximately $33,000 in 2019 dollars), and by the 1850s demand for slaves reached an all-time high, and prices therefore doubled. The high price of slaves in the 1850s and the inability of natural increase to satisfy demands led some southerners to demand the reopening of the international slave trade, a movement that caused a rift between the Upper South and the Lower South. Whites in the Upper South who sold slaves to their counterparts in the Lower South worried that reopening the trade would lower prices and hurt their profits.

What were the benefits of cotton to the South?

The power of cotton on the world market may have brought wealth to the South, but it also increased its economic dependence on other countries and other parts of the United States. Much of the corn and pork that slaves consumed came from farms in the West. Some of the inexpensive clothing, called “slops,” and shoes worn by slaves were manufactured in the North. The North also supplied the furnishings found in the homes of both wealthy planters and members of the middle class. Many of the trappings of domestic life, such as carpets, lamps, dinnerware, upholstered furniture, books, and musical instruments—all the accoutrements of comfortable living for southern whites—were made in either the North or Europe. Southern planters also borrowed money from banks in northern cities, and in the southern summers, took advantage of the developments in transportation to travel to resorts at Saratoga, New York; Litchfield, Connecticut; and Newport, Rhode Island.

Why was cotton a commodity?

As a commodity, cotton had the advantage of being easily stored and transported. A demand for it already existed in the industrial textile mills in Great Britain, and in time, a steady stream of slave-grown American cotton would also supply northern textile mills.

What were the economic opportunities of the slave trade?

The domestic slave trade offered many economic opportunities for white men. Those who sold their slaves could realize great profits, as could the slave brokers who served as middlemen between sellers and buyers. Other white men could benefit from the trade as owners of warehouses and pens in which slaves were held, or as suppliers of clothing and food for slaves on the move. Between 1790 and 1859, slaveholders in Virginia sold more than half a million slaves. In the early part of this period, many of these slaves were sold to people living in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina. By the 1820s, however, people in Kentucky and the Carolinas had begun to sell many of their slaves as well. Maryland slave dealers sold at least 185,000 slaves. Kentucky slaveholders sold some seventy-one thousand individuals. Most of the slave traders carried these slaves further south to Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. New Orleans, the hub of commerce, boasted the largest slave market in the United States and grew to become the nation’s fourth-largest city as a result. Natchez, Mississippi, had the second-largest market. In Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and elsewhere in the South, slave auctions happened every day.

How did slaves plant cotton?

Cotton planting took place in March and April, when slaves planted seeds in rows around three to five feet apart. Over the next several months, from April to August, they carefully tended the plants. Weeding the cotton rows took significant energy and time. In August, after the cotton plants had flowered and the flowers had begun to give way to cotton bolls (the seed-bearing capsule that contains the cotton fiber), all the plantation’s slaves—men, women, and children—worked together to pick the crop ( Figure ). On each day of cotton picking, slaves went to the fields with sacks, which they would fill as many times as they could. The effort was laborious, and a white “driver” employed the lash to make slaves work as quickly as possible.

How did the slaves build the cotton kingdom?

The slaves who built this cotton kingdom with their labor started by clearing the land. Although the Jeffersonian vision of the settlement of new U.S. territories entailed white yeoman farmers single-handedly carving out small independent farms, the reality proved quite different.

What was the main crop of the antebellum South?

By 1860, the region was producing two-thirds of the world’s cotton. In 1793, Eli Whitney revolutionized the production of cotton when he invented the cotton gin, a device that separated the seeds from raw cotton .

What was the crop grown in the South during the Civil War?

The crop grown in the South was a hybrid: Gossypium barbadense, known as Petit Gulf cotton, a mix of Mexican, Georgia, and Siamese strains. Petit Gulf cotton grew extremely well in ...

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• By the time of the Civil War, two-thirds of the cotton produced in the world came from the American South. Textile factories in Britain used enormous quantities of cotton from America. When the Civil War began, the Union Navy blockaded the ports of the South as part of General Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan. And cotton exports were effectively stop...

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