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Chapter 5: The Textile Industry

The Industrial Revolutions

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The Greatest Sins of American History

In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a new kind of cotton gin. Overnight the efficiency of cotton ginning increased 50 fold. Cotton law barely functioned in Great Britain, much less the brand new United States. American farmers stopped growing tobacco and potatoes to grow cotton instead. They imported a lot of slaves to do the work. The U.S. forcibly relocated the Cherokee, Crick, Seminole, and other tribes off their ancestral lands so they could plant more cotton.

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