Cause: Need for faster cotton processing. Effect: Increased cotton production, demand for enslaved labor, and Southern economic dependence on cotton.

Cause: High profitability of cotton. Effect: Southern economic dominance, defense of slavery, and increased sectional tensions.

Cause: Continuous cotton planting. Effect: Soil depletion, westward expansion of plantations and slavery, and increased political tensions.

Cause: Focus on agriculture and social hierarchy. Effect: High illiteracy rates, limited opportunities for social mobility, and perpetuation of existing inequalities.

Cause: Economic dependence on slave labor. Effect: Resistance to federal interference, increased sectional tensions, and eventual secession.

Cause: Desire to romanticize Southern life and justify social hierarchy. Effect: Obscured the reality of slavery and inequality, reinforced a false image of Southern society.

Cause: Desire to maintain social order and cultural identity. Effect: Strong sense of regional pride, resistance to change, and justification of slavery.

Cause: Unique social and economic system based on cotton and slavery. Effect: Increased sectional tensions, secessionist sentiments, and the Civil War.

Cause: Profitability of cotton and availability of enslaved labor. Effect: Unique social and political system, resistance to change, and increased sectionalism.

Cause: Desire to maintain social hierarchy and control enslaved people. Effect: Justification of slavery, discrimination, and oppression of African Americans.

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which dramatically sped up cotton production, making it more profitable but also increasing the demand for enslaved labor.

Cotton became the dominant cash crop in the South, fueling the Southern economy and reinforcing the institution of slavery.

As plantations moved west due to soil depletion, slavery expanded, increasing political tensions between the North and South.

This demonstrated the economic power of the South and its reliance on cotton production, solidifying the importance of slavery.

The lack of education in the South contributed to high illiteracy rates and further entrenched existing social and economic inequalities.

Southern leaders defended slavery as essential to their economy, resisting any federal interference and increasing sectional tensions.

The cotton gin dramatically increased the demand for enslaved labor because it made cotton production much more efficient and profitable.

Overcultivation depleted the soil, pushing planters to move westward in search of fertile land for cotton cultivation.

Southerners saw themselves as different from the rest of the country, which fueled secessionist sentiments leading up to the Civil War.

It created a unique social and political system that was heavily invested in preserving slavery and resisting change.

A machine that separates cotton seeds from fibers, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793.

A term used to describe the dominance of cotton in the Southern economy and its influence on Southern society and politics.

The period in the Southern United States before the Civil War (roughly 1815-1860).

The belief that white people are superior to people of other races and should therefore dominate society.

A social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, property ownership, and control of labor.

Loyalty to one's own region or section of the country, rather than to the country as a whole.

The excessive and unsustainable planting of a crop (like cotton) which depletes the soil of its nutrients.

An agricultural crop which is grown for sale to return a profit.

The act of putting an end to something by law, specifically slavery.

Factories that process fibers, like cotton, into yarn or fabric.