Question

Which statements describe a NEGATIVE outcome of the invention of the cotton gin? Choose TWO.

A) The invention made processing cotton faster, easier and more efficient.
B) By 1850, almost 75% of the world's cotton was processed in the United States.
Eliminate
C) Twenty years after the cotton gin invention, the number of slaves in America had doubled.
D) To keep up with demand for cotton, plantation owners set very long hours of relentless work.
E) In the decade following the invention, cotton production rose from 3,000 bales a year to 100,000 bales a year.

Answer 1

Except for the statement A, all other statements can be argued to be negative outcomes of the invention of the cotton gin. But in the need to choose only two, the most negative are C and D.

Despite the cotton gin making processing faster, it produced more demand for labor instead of less. The cotton production's radical growth was based primarily on slave labor. Thus:

Statements B and E are negative since the prominence of the United States in the world cotton production, due to a tremendous increase in production, was reached based on a more violent exploration of slave labor.

Statements C and D refer more directly to negative outcomes of the cotton gin. They explain how numbers in statements B and E were achieved. Slave labor was a repudiation of black people's status as humans. It was obtained through continuous violence and torture, and it increased due to the invention of the cotton gin.