Georgia Cotton Kingdom

Does the invention of the Cotton Gin promote the growth of Slavery? The numbers seem to suggest it. Some may suggest that due to the increase in the number of workers, the heaviness of the workload has lessen, but that is a misconception. Due to the extremely high demand of cotton, the workload of the slaves were pushed to the limits. The whippings were harder and the quantity of whippings were larger. The plantation owners, or rather the slave overseers worked to create new ways to punish the slaves in the event that they are not able to meet the quota set by their masters. Even with the harsher punishments, the true reason why the slaves worked so hard was not because they were whipped or punished, but because of the fear. The slaves feared being whipped so they worked harder to avoid such a tragedy. Those who were whipped were mere examples that keep the fear prevalent in the mind of the other workers. But because of this, slaves picked an average of one hundred pounds of cotton per day per person.

Slaves, in response to the punishments and the cruel quotas set by their owners, became better at picking cotton. They developed techniques that required no wasted movements. They were like disposable, living machines made for the production of cotton. Coupled with the constant surveillance by white overseers and sometimes even African American overseers, they perfected the art of cotton picking. Slavers actually developed a system for the slaves to test how fast a person could work depending on how many whippings they get. For example, if a person works the hardest after a total of five whippings, then the slaver will deliver that amount of whippings in order to create the maximum output of cotton by the slave. They kept record to test out this method. They tested if more whippings or less whippings would produce more cotton per person. It was a cruel system but it showed results.

The cotton gin was indeed a fantastic creation that empowered America’s economy but it caused much suffering in the slave community. Slavery was indiscriminate in gender and age. At this time, only race was the only factor that mattered in slavery. Slaves below the age of seventeen were dominated by higher skilled female workers. The higher skilled, older slaves tend to be males. Older slaves are rare because many would expire early due to the workload or because they escaped or killed. However, the older slaves tend to be more experienced, thus more skilled. There are records of some producing greater than four hundred pounds of cotton per day. The average amount of cotton per day per person still remains around one hundred pounds but the average improves as the years pass and the slaves learn how to work faster. This is possibly due to either the slaves finding better techniques or the owners finding more “incentives” for the slaves to work faster.