Yen Le Dr.

KT Magnusson ECON- 1740-043 04/18/2014 EPortfolio: "In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time."The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Quincy" (October 13, 1858), p. 276. Abraham Lincoln saying reinforces my belief that slavery used to be so important that Americans could not get rid of it. Similar to Howard Dodsons thought, I also have confidence in a point that slavery helped build a world economy. My view is supported by Dodsons article, How slavery helped build a world economy, as well as knowledge that I learn from my American Economic History class. In order to support my point of view, I will focus on analyzing the importance of slaves in America, including their contribution to the development of the world economy. In the book Time on the Cross (1974), Fogel and Engerman briefly pointed out ten major theses of slavery in which Slavery was a rational, profitable way for Southerners who knew their own interests to maximize profits and wealth and was thriving and growing economicall y stronger than ever before 1861. Besides this, they also stated that The average slave field hand was more hardworking and efficient than his white counterpart. Although these theses

produced a virtual avalanche of scholarly criticism, they buttressed the important role of slavery toward the American economy as well as their advantages if compared with other kinds of labor. King Cotton is one of the major causes leading to the promotion of slavery. After 1800, cotton rapidly emerged as the countrys most important export and quickly became the key to American prosperity. Because of this, the request of large labor to provide for the cotton production system became an important issue at this time. Slavery, with its advantages, inevitably got to be the major labor of cotton production, which caused the widespread of slavery in the North of United States. Accordingly, the number of slaves increased. Indeed, we can assume that The expansion of cotton meant the geographic expansion of slavery as well. So how can this relationship helped build the world economy? Based on economic history, in the eighteenth century, there was a huge demand for American cotton due to the mechanization of the textile industry in England. This lead to the rise of the cottons price and the slaves price as well. According to Was slavery the engine of American economic growth?, by 1840, the South grew 60 percent of the worlds cotton and provided some 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry, whereas, slave-grown cotton provided over half of all U.S. export earnings. In addition, before the invention of cotton, slaves had worked on the tobacco, rice, sugar, and so on. Therefore, it is possible to say that slave labor did produce the major consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. All in all, I believe that King Cotton and slavery did help to built a world-wide economy as well as American economy. Through resources that I find to write this paper, I learn that

King Cotton and slavery had a close relationship, which led to their important roles in the world economy.

Work cited:

Abraham Lincoln Quotes about slavery. Rutgers University Press. Abraham Lincoln Research Site. Web. 17 Apr. 2014 Dattel, Gene. When Cotton Was King. N.P. The New York Times, 26 Mar 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2014 Was slavery the engine of American economic growth? N.P. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Web. 17 Apr. 2014