Question

How did the desire for cotton affect Native American people?

Answer 1

Long answer: To understand the effect of the expansion of cotton culture on slave population.

Cotton was a profitable crop, but was not grown on a large scale because of the slow and difficult process of removing seeds from cotton bolls in order to produce a usable fiber. Plantation owners determined slave labor was needed to operate the southern plantations. It took a great deal of labor to plant, tend, and pick the cotton. Even more work was required to separate the seeds from the fibers and then to bale the cotton fibers. Planters bought slaves to do the labor. The invention of cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 changed this situation. Cotton culture expanded, as did slave populations. The effect of the cotton expansion improved production and slave population all across the South.