Cotton Gin

US History
Background
In 1793, young Yale graduate Eli Whitney was journeying to a teaching job in South Carolina when he befriended a rich widow who invited him to her plantation near Savannah. Sensitive by nature, a handyman by preference, Whitney was disturbed by his glimpse of slavery and the backbreaking demands of cotton plantation life. Hoping to relieve some of the drudgery, he built an engine, or a “gin,” with a hand-cranked drum that pulled cotton fibers from the seed through a wire filter, while a brush removed the lint. In one hour, his gin processed the same amount that required ten hours of slave labor. He submitted his patent, returned to Connecticut, and began taking orders. Ironically, rather than relieve the necessity of slaves, the gin expanded cotton culture, thus requiring more slaves. From 100,000 bales in 1801, cotton production rose to 5 million in 1859, further inflaming hostilities that led to the Civil War. Whitney’s patent rights were ignored by southern manufacturers and by 1804, he was penniless.
Primary Document
 Solomon Northup was a New Yorker and a freeman when he was kidnapped and sold as a slave in 1841. His description of the time he spent on a cotton plantation in Louisiana explains the impact made by the cotton gin on the daily lives of slaves:
"The hands are required to be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning, and, with the exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not permitted to be a moment idle until it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often times labor till the middle of the night. They do not dare to stop even at dinner time, nor return to the quarters, however late it be until the order to halt is given by the driver. The day's work over in the field, the baskets are "toted," or in other words, carried to the gin-house, where the cotton is weighed. No matter how fatigued and weary he may be -- no matter how much he longs for sleep and rest -- a slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight -- if he has not performed the full task appointed of him, he knows that he must suffer. And if he has exceeded it by ten or twenty pounds, in all probability his master will measure the next day's task accordingly. So, whether he has too little or too much, his approach to the gin-house is always with fear and trembling."
Homework Assignment
You may choose 1 of the 2 options below:

1. Because slaves were forbidden by law to learn to read or write, we have few written accounts of their lives. However, slaves did sing songs that powerfully expressed their experiences and later became the basis for what we now call the Blues. Compose a "Cotton Gin Blues" using the call and response form in which the first line is "called" and repeated in the "response" -- AAB, CCD, EEF, etc.
2. Or you may write an interview with a slave on a cotton plantation.

Whichever option you choose, you must:

1. Show how Eli Whitney meant to help ease the suffering of slaves, but created the invention that vastly increased slavery.
2. Include at least 3 facts from this worksheet.