Anti-slavery arguments
Anti-slavery arguments that attack the cotton industry prove the industrialization of cotton dependency on slave labor, emphasizing the ultimatum between capital and human equality. In "An Address to King Cotton," published in 1863, Eugene Pelletan claimed “The very movement that some poor devil, accidently but honestly found an infernal machine to pick cotton, you transformed the south into a cotton plantation."1 The accusation of the industrlization of cotton, through the invention of the cotton gin, is consistent in both pre-postmodern arguments.Pellentan expands his anti-slavery argument, by emphasizing the global dependence on the American cotton industry. He states, “The England and France must of necessity, -either jointly or separately- intervein in favor of slavery in order to save their cotton."1 Pallentan argues that if England and France continued to support the trade of American cotton to Europe, they must support the slave labor that produced it. Anti-slavery arguments, at the time, held the same argument that the cotton empire was built upon Black slaves. “A cotton republic, a black state founded upon slavery, such a rash act would inflict upon the world element of perturbation and a scourge more terrible than the cholera."1 The acknowledgment that interfering with slave labor would cause significant economic and global disruption underscores how reliant the cotton industry was on slavery. Anti-slavery arguments, with their consistent critiques of the cotton industry, underscore the interdependence between cotton industrialization and institutionalized slavery, revealing a choice between economic stability and human rights.
In his 1863 book The Cotton Trade: Its Bearing Upon the Prosperity of Great Britain and the Commerce of the American Republics, George McHenry uses an international perspective to emphasize the global and domestic cotton industry's dependence on slave labor. McHenry begins by claiming "Cotton production in the American and cotton manufacturing in the United Kingdom are based upon the ‘peculiar institution;’ and the great development of both industries took place, aided by inventions on either side of the Atlantic, just as the period of suppression of the African slave trade."2 This statement acknowledges the global complacency of institutional slavery and the slave trade through the simultaneous development of the industrialization of cotton. Early Europe also pays tribute to the industrialization of cotton to the mechanical advancements in the Southern United States. Mchenry supports this by stating “As well as innumerable other improvements, with the application of steam power machinery, and the cultivation of cotton in the Southern United States of America, have been largely instrumental in placing England on her present proud commercial eminence."2 This statement indirectly addresses Eli Whitney's cotton gin, created in the American South, that paved the way for further mechanical development of cotton gins. It also addresses the international significance of the invention of cotton gin to the global industrialization of cotton. The similarities between the early international and postmodern perspectives strengthen the argument that the 1793 cotton gin led to the rapid industrialization of cotton and institutional slavery. “The cultivation of cotton from the period increased rapidly; the improvements in machinery augmenting its use, induced production, and gave occupation to the plethora of African Labour."2 This statement links the growing demand for labor to the expansion of the cotton industry, a trend that Europe also experienced through its increased involvement in the slave trade, which made both the domestic and global cotton industries dependent on slave labor.
The industrialization of cotton provided the foundations for the Southern institutions of slavery that perpetuated the ideology prioritization of capital over human equality. This is supported in Andrew W. Kahrl's book, To Liberate From An "Anomalous Condition" Or "Secnre In Ignorance And Wretchedness"? Reassessing The Intellectual Origins Of The American Colonization Society. Kahrl states “In the years prior to the invention of the cotton gin and the rapid expansion of slavery into the Deep South and Southwest, slavery as an economic institution was on the wane."3 After the invention of the cotton gin, slavery became so economically entrenched that it evolved into an institution sustained by the exploitation of slave labor. This appeals to the pro-slavery arguments using the United States' economic interests as justification to perpetuate the institution of slavery. The institution of slavery evolved into systemic racism, which created institutional barriers that restricted social mobility for Black Americans. Kahrl supports this by acknowledging the “larger economic and social forces at work during this period increased Southern whites' efforts to restrict the mobility and later champion the removal of free blacks.”3 Free Black Americans were considered a threat to the institution of slavery, endangering the U.S. economy, and making white Southerners resort to institutional barriers based on race to limit all Black social mobilization despite their freedom status. The ideology of prioritization of capital over human equality had allowed these racialized institutions to thrive and remain prevalent in contemporary injustices today.
1 Pelletan, Eugène. An address to King Cotton. [New York], United States: [Messager Franco-American Print. office], [1863?]. Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive (accessed November 27, 2024). https://link-gale-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/apps/doc/DS0100154081/SAS?u=msu_main&sid=bookmark-SAS&xid=51ff9f34&pg=1.
2McHenry, George. The cotton trade : its bearing upon the prosperity of Great Britain and commerce of the American republics : considered in connection with the system of Negro slavery in the Confederate States. London, United Kingdom: Saunders, Otley & Co., 1863. Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive (accessed November 27, 2024). https://link-gale-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/apps/doc/GF0100256993/SAS?u=msu_main&sid=bookmark-SAS&xid=c7d41f07&pg=79.
3 Kahrl, Andrew W. 2009. “To Liberate From An ‘Anomalous Condition’ Or ‘Secure In Ignorance And Wretchedness’? Reassessing The Intellectual Origins Of The American Colonization Society.” Liberian Studies Journal 34 (2): 1–15. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=poh&AN=66687015&site=eds-live.