Slavery was its fuel. Many stakeholders benefited from the cotton economy — plantation owners in the South, banks in the North, shipping merchants, and the textile industry in Great Britain.

Also recommended are materials (maps, videos, etc.) that show the importance of geography and climate to the growing and transportation of cotton. Good primary sources include the writings of mill ...

Johnston, describes the bounties of the new cotton lands. Norcom had migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi. He writes to Johnston, a North Carolina plantation owner, telling him of the ...

This plantation was established in 1851, and by 1860, it was home to 74 enslaved people housed in 23 cabins. It operated mainly as a cotton plantation until the last crop was planted in 1922.

A single person could clean — maybe — a pound of cotton a day. In the late 1700s, plantation owner Catharine Littlefield Greene introduced Whitney to a group of farmers were trying to decide ...