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UNIT 7: Developing Nation
UNIT 7: Developing Nation
Lesson: THe Memphis Exchange
Lesson: THe Memphis Exchange
Tennessee State Standards:
Tennessee State Standards:
8.34 Describe the development of the agrarian economy in the South, the locations of the cotton- producing states, the significance of cotton and the cotton gin, and the founding of Memphis as a center for cotton and the slave trade.
8.34 Describe the development of the agrarian economy in the South, the locations of the cotton- producing states, the significance of cotton and the cotton gin, and the founding of Memphis as a center for cotton and the slave trade.
THE FOUNDING OF MEMPHIS
THE FOUNDING OF MEMPHIS
Farmers first moved to western Tennessee in the early 1800s. They planted a lot of cotton. In 1819, a group of wealthy men that included Andrew Jackson, made a deal with the Chickasaw Indians to purchase a small piece of western Kentucky and all of western Tennessee. This business deal became known as the Jackson Purchase.
After the purchase, the men founded the city of Memphis in Southwestern Tennessee. Its location on the Mississippi river made it a center for buying, selling, and shipping cotton. Soon, major railroad lines also went through Memphis.
KING COTTON & THE MEMPHIS EXCHANGE
KING COTTON & THE MEMPHIS EXCHANGE
Cotton was king in Memphis. At the Memphis Exchange, farmers sold cotton to traders. These traders then sold the cotton to textile manufacturers in the Northern United States and around the world. The exchange was important to the booming Southern US cotton economy of the 1800s.
West Tennessee was the richest cotton producing region of Tennessee. Cotton plantations covered hundreds of acres. The area also had the greatest concentration of slaves in the state. Slave markets in Memphis prospered, and it became the largest slave training city in the mid south.
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