Though he did not invent the cotton gin, which had existed in many forms for centuries, Eli Whitney popularized the use of a cotton gin that more efficiently cleaned short-staple cotton by removing the seeds from the fluff. This enabled plantation owners to grow and process large amounts of cotton for textile factories, which yielded big profits for plantation owners and mill owners and encouraged enslavers to increase the number of people they enslaved to produce the crop. Better agricultural practices in growing cotton contributed as well. But of crucial importance, within the burgeoning capitalist societies of Europe and the Americas, was the mechanized production of textiles, much of which was concentrated in Great Britain and the American city of Lowell, Massachusetts.

As cotton grew increasingly profitable, plantation owners looked to expand their operations, which required more enslaved laborers to work the land. As a result, the number of people enslaved in the United States grew dramatically alongside cotton production. Enslaving cotton-growers used this involuntary, unpaid workforce of enslaved African people to maximize their profit. Cotton production tends to drain the soil of its nutrients; hence, Georgia’s soil was “worn out” by the 1850s. This drove planters west, where they found new rich soil for cotton production, thereby expanding slavery into more states and territories.

Cotton plantation owners forced enslaved people to work long days in harsh conditions. Overseers drove productivity through beatings, floggings, and, sometimes, death. Plantation owners purchased cheap, poor-quality textiles known as “negro cloth” in large quantities to clothe their enslaved people. In many parts of the country these textiles became known as “Lowell cloth,” since a substantial amount of such cloth was manufactured in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Although confined in the bonds of slavery, enslaved people exercised their agency, an action undertaken to produce a particular effect, in many ways. Enslaved people fell in love, formed family bonds, performed their own religious or spiritual practices, broke tools and faked illness to get out of work, or self-emancipated by running away.