Historical Update...circa 1987.

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Originally Posted by Ike Bana

I would only add that the real explosion in the slave trade and the numbers of black people held in bondage didn't happen until Whitney invented the cotton gin. It was the cotton gin that the agrarian south used to make slaveholding really pay off for most farm owners. Before that, the maximum production and income from hand cleaning raw cotton was not worth what it cost to keep slaves alive. Only the really big plantations could really profit from it. After the cotton gin became available, every moderately sized farm was suddenly in the market for slaves.

When cotton production began its dramatic increase as a result or the cotton gin the South had a significant surplus of slave labor. The cotton belt's labor needs were primarily met by these slaves, their children and grandchildren.

By the Revolution most slaves were African American, I.e. born here. In 1860 the slave population was essentially African American and most of the Afican slaves were old. For me the importance of this is that antebellum Planter wealth was derived fom the labor of enslaved citizens.