In 1793 Eli Whitney invented a very important machine. It was the cotton gin. This very simple machine removes seeds from cotton plants at the least fifty times faster than a worker could by hand. Since several southern states had soil that was ideal for growing cotton and all of the new textile m...

1. According to Henry Louis Gates, almost 50% of the Afro-American literary tradition was created when "it's authors and their black readers were either slaves or former slaves". 2. Slave narratives were produced for many reasons. One was to inform others of the hardships that slaves...