The Cost of Cotton

The cotton gin was central to plantation economics. By 1820, the U.S. grew over 30 times more cotton than when Eli Whitney's gin was patented, making it the world's leading supplier, and by 1850 the South had become a vast expanse of cotton plantations serving textile mills in New England and Great Britain. Enslaved labor built this "cotton kingdom's" wealth, and in 1860 Magnolia planters enslaved more people and produced more cotton than any other plantation in Natchitoches Parish. After picking, workers hauled cotton to the gin to be de-seeded and pressed into 400-pound bales for market. The work was dangerous; in 1856, an enslaved worker called "Little Ned" was burnt to death in the press. Freedom brought few changes, as many formerly enslaved people's lives remained tied to cotton, and sharecroppers and tenant farmers continued ginning and pressing cotton at Magnolia until the gin barn was damaged by a tornado in 1939.

Montgomery, Louisiana · United States