<u>Answer:
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In the United States before the Civil War, it was illegal to teach a slave to read or write.
<u>Explanation:
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- In the southern states where slavery was legal and most white families owned slaves, it was illegal to educate a slave to become literate.
- The act of teaching a slave was unanimously criminalized by all the southern states because the leaders of these states feared the idea of slave getting educated and revolting against them.
- The states had laws in place to punish the one who tried to educate slaves.
I can answer the cotton gin one it was a invention used to pick the seeds of cotton made it faster for cotton picking in the south
