Revival of Slavery 233when it was no longer possible to claim the British
bounty. Cotton seemed an obvious answer. Farmers
were experimenting hopefully with varieties of the
plant and mulling the problem of how upland cotton
could be more easily deseeded.
Generations of American schoolchildren—and
college students—have been taught that over the
course of two weeks in 1793 Eli Whitney, a Yankee
who had never seen a cotton plant, invented a
machine that instantly revolutionized the production
of cotton. His cotton gin (engine) consisted of a
cylinder covered with rows of wire teeth rotating in a
box filled with cotton. As the cylinder turned, the
teeth passed through narrow slits in a metal grating.
Cotton fibers were caught by the teeth and pulled
through the slits. The seeds, too thick to pass through
the openings, were left behind. A second cylinder,
with brushes rotating in the opposite direction to
sweep the cotton from the wires, prevented matting
and clogging.
In fact, as the lithograph on page 232 suggests,
Southern cotton planters had for decades used a roller
gin, which operated according to similar principles—
tugging cotton through meshed teeth to pull out
seeds without harming the fibers. Many regarded
Whitney’s design as an improvement, but it took
nearly three decades before it replaced the roller gins.
The expansion of cotton production did not rise
sharply until the 1820s.
Upland cotton would grow wherever there were
200 consecutive days without frost and twenty-four
inches of rain. The crop engulfed Georgia and South
Carolina and spread north into parts of Virginia. After
Andrew Jackson smashed the southeastern Indians
during the War of 1812, the rich “Black Belt” area of
central Alabama and northern Mississippi and the
delta region along the lower Mississippi River were
rapidly taken over by the fluffy white staple. In 1821
Alabama alone raised 40,000 bales. Central Tennessee
also became important cotton country.
Cotton stimulated the economy of the rest of the
nation as well. Most of it was exported, the sale pay-
ing for much-needed European products. The trans-
portation, insurance, and final disposition of the crop
fell largely into the hands of Northern merchants,
who profited accordingly. And the surplus corn and
hogs of western farmers helped feed the slaves of the
new cotton plantations. Cotton was the major force in
the economy for a generation, beginning about 1815.Revival of Slavery
Amid the national rejoicing over this prosperity, one
aspect both sad and ominous was easily overlooked.
Slavery, a declining or at worst stagnant institution in
the decade of the Revolution, was revitalized in the
following years.
Libertarian beliefs inspired by the Revolution ran
into the roadblock of race prejudice as soon as some
of the practical aspects of freedom for blacks
became apparent. As disciples of John Locke, the
Revolutionary generation had a deep respect for prop-
erty rights; in the last analysis most white Americans
placed these rights ahead of the personal liberty of
black Americans. Forced abolition of slavery therefore
attracted few recruits. Moreover, the rhetoric of the
Revolution had raised the aspirations of blacks.
Increasing signs of rebelliousness appeared among
them, especially after the slave uprising in Saint
Domingue, which culminated, after a great bloodbath,
in the establishment of the black Republic of Haiti in- This example of a successful slave revolt filled
white Americans with apprehension. Their fears were
irrational (Haitian blacks outnumbered whites and
mulattos combined by seven to one), but nonetheless
real. And fear led to repression; the exposure in 1801
of a plot to revolt in Virginia, led by the slave Gabriel,
resulted in some three dozen executions even though
no actual uprising had occurred.
The mood of the Revolutionary decade had led a
substantial number of masters to free their slaves.
Unfortunately this led many other whites to have sec-
ond thoughts about ending slavery. “If the blacks see all
of their color slaves, it will seem to them a disposition of
Providence, and they will be content,” a Virginia legis-
lator, apparently something of an amateur psychologist,
claimed. “But if they see others like themselves free...
they will repine.” As the number of free blacks rose,
restrictions on them were everywhere tightened.
Prices for Cotton and for Slaves, 1802–1860These prices for
cotton and field slaves appear in New Orleans records. The left axis
shows the price of cotton; the right, the price of a slave. The rising
trend of slave prices (especially from 1850 to 1860), and a growing
slave population, show the continuing profitability and viability of
slavery up to 1860.
Price of
prime field handPrice of cotton
per pound$1.00
.90
.80
.70
.60
.50
.40
.30
.20
.10
0$2,000
1,800
1,600
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
2001810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860