As a result of the growth of cotton, the textile industry took off. England also had a large supply of coal and iron to support the construction of new industries. The railroad was laid down all across England, which required a large amount of both iron and coal. With new forms of transportation and acquired resources, mass production in England was possible. Due to the sprouting factories in England, farm workers were forced away from their lands, and into a largely overcrowded cities.
Slavery built the U.S.’s economy. As we’ve learned through the readings and all the films and documentaries watched in this class, two of the largest exports out of the U.S. (the South, to be more specific) were cotton and tobacco, which were picked by the slaves. As the demands for cotton and tobacco increased, so did the number of slaves, which unfortunately led to (White Americans) believing to be superior and led to hate and discriminating against a group of people based on their skin color. This led the Civil Rights Movement in 1964, which changed history in America, with some important events that I’ve learned from taking this class. Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion, (also known as the Southampton Insurrection), which was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton county in Virginia in August 1831.
History Why do you think the slave trade grew? (10) The demand for sugar caused the slave trade to grow, for example in 1700 there were already over 500 coffee houses in London, and coffee and tea required lots of sugar to sweeten them. British people loved drinking tea and coffee, and the demand for these drinks grew in the 18th century. This caused the slave trade to grow, because more slaves were needed to meet the increasing demand for sugar. Another reason that the slave trade grew was because of the greed of the merchants, this was because of the fact that one journey of the triangular trade could set them up for life.
This difference in opinions was one of the causes of the Civil War The main cause of the Civil War was greed by the south. The south needed the slaves as a steady work force due to an invention years before the war called the Cotton Gin. This invention enabled plantation to grow to huge sizes. In 1830, 750,000 bales of hay per year were produced. Around 1850, the production of hay bales jumped up to 2.85 million bales per year.
(Mooney p. 4) The traditional methods of cottage industry could not keep up with the growing demand for cotton clothes throughout Britain and its vast colonial empire. Faced with this problem, British cloth manufacturers sought and accepted the new methods of manufacturing that a series of inventions provided which, in turn, ignited the industrial Revolution. (Duiker p.465) Among the inventions was the invention of the flying shuttle that enabled weavers to weave faster on a loom, the invention of the steam engine that could pump water from mines three times as quickly as previous engines, the invention of a rotary engine that could turn a shaft and thus drive machinery. Other technological changes occur in the British iron industry with a better quality of iron that produced almost 3 million tons of iron annually, more than the rest of the world combined. This new technology was also used to build new machines, new industries such as the first steam-powered locomotive on an industrial rail line in southern Wales.
With this new development, entrepreneurs began to open new workshops and forced their employees to work long strenuous hours to produce their goods. A number of other factors contributed to Britain’s success in the Industrial Revolution. For one, it had great deposits of coal and iron ore, which was essential for industrialization. Additionally, Britain was a political stable society and a great marketplace for manufactured goods. As demand rose for British goods, merchants needed more cost effective methods of production, which led to the rise of mechanics and factory systems.
Expansion of the country, invention of the cotton gin, and greater demand for cotton were all contributing factors to the changes in the slave population in early America. However as the country was expanding westward, slavery became the main issue. Which states would allow slavery and which opted out of slavery? These issues the federal government took on and began overriding state laws, all these issue pushed the country into civil war. However, what part did slave narratives play in gaining support of the banning of slavery?
As mentioned by William Harper, “The cultivation of the great staple crop cannot be carried on without slaves.” (Harper, Memoir in Slavery, 1837) In a time of western expansion and the cotton boom, some slave traders were able to accumulate great wealth from the slave-trading business and sought opportunities to acquire higher social status and financial stability. A con of slavery was when slaves were driven mercilessly to plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops for market. A failed crop meant the planter could lose his initial investment in land and slaves and possibly suffer bankruptcy. A successful crop could earn such high returns that the slaves were often worked beyond human endurance. Plantation masters argued callously that it was cheaper to work the slaves to death and then buy new ones than it was to allow them to live long enough and under sufficiently healthy conditions that they could bear children to increase their numbers.
From this, the percentage of children who lived through childhood also began to increase, therefore the future workforce would be even large than previously. The increase in population meant that there were more people from agricultural jobs and they had to find work in industrial factories, which was the basis of the Industrial Revolution. Immigration had a great effect on the growth of Industry. One of the major causes for the Industrial Revolution was the technologies that increased productivity such as the steam power which was one of the great motives for the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Steam was used to power, many of the machines used in factories, and therefore with the invention of steam power, the Industrial Revolution was made possible.
The market for slaves itself was large, slaves could be brought, sold, and even rented out. Not only was the market for slaves large, they stimulated other parts of Ancient Rome’s economy. Slaves were used on farms, on public state projects, as household servants, as prostitutes, and even as gladiators, Slavery was view as tradition so embedded into daily life, so that Romans didn’t want to abolish the act. Just as Ancient Rome, slavery was embedded into the Ante-bellum South. The United States owes its early prosperity to slavery, because slavery really stimulated and developed the American agriculture.