Question

What key details support or elaborate on the realationship between cotton and slavery presented in "when cotton was King"?

Answer 1

The small South of the United States that had tobacco plantations happened to be a giant empire of cotton. This growth was based on violence, bloodshed, brutality, forced migration, family breakdown, torture and extreme torment, of a people of slaves. Slavery was a very profitable method since their work was free and a great sowing and harvesting of cotton was obtained. It was a ruthless form of capitalism. In the south were the four richest states in the country. The cotton collected by the slaves of the South, provided the cheap raw material for the industrialization of the North. With cotton capitalist slavery, the United States took control of the world cotton market.

Answer 2

The southern states were highly dependant on the agricultural industry during the second half of the 18th century. Under this scenario, the slave trade was a common practice among landowners at the time.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 gave a slaveholder the right to maintain the ownership of a scaped slave. This gave birth to the "slave catcher" profession. The novel mentions details about how people were trained in order to execute the tasks of capturing the slaves and the internal conflicts some of them go through while performing their tasks.