this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Explanation: Eli Whitney, the inventor of the Cotton Gin, believed that his invention, by reducing the amount of labor needed to process cotton, would hasten the demise of slavery - which everyone in 1790s America knew was on its way out anyway!
... it had the exact opposite effect. By making cotton easier to process, demand for cotton grew and became even more profitable - and cotton is an extremely labor-intensive plant to harvest. And guess who did the harvesting of cotton in 1790s America?
There were other factors at play as well, but the cotton gin was extremely instrumental in revitalizing the economic viability of the system of chattel slavery in the American South. Cotton would become the sole pillar of the Southern economy going forward, and with it, slavery.