Informative Essay: The Cotton Culture In The United States

The Cotton Culture What is cotton? Well first of all, there is a ninety percent chance that at least one, if not more, article of your clothing that you are wearing is made with cotton. According to the dictionary, cotton is defined as a soft white fibrous substance that surrounds the seeds of a tropical and subtropical plant and is used as textile fiber and thread for sewing. Cotton could also be defined as the plant that is commercially grown for cotton products. Cotton, in many countries, is one of the most important fiber producing plants. Not only is a cotton plant used for its fiber, but the cottonseed is used for oil as well. The cottonseed oil you can find in cooking oils, shortening, and even salad dressing. Cotton is a very important

In the river bottoms in south Arkansas the citizens made a living through agriculture, as in farming and raising cattle. The farmers grew a variety of crops, but starting in the 1820s cotton became their staple crops. In the book it quotes, “The cotton planter’s entire year’s schedule revolved around preparing the ground, planting, cultivating, and picking cotton.” I personally come from a family of farmers so I understand farming is not an eight to five job. Cotton was planted in April and May and picking began in late August early September. Picking the cotton was the longest part, especially if it was a rainy fall which could cause picking extend into the next year. The women in my family always joke around and say, “If they’re not farming, they’re watching the weather.” Now back during the 1800s they didn’t an app on their phone to tell them what the weather would be like. What most people don’t understand is that weather has a tremendous impact on the crops, especially back them since they didn’t have the technology and excellent resources we have now. If it rained too much or too little, or winter came too early, it not only could ruin the crops, but it could hurt the farmer and his family because they would have no crops to sell. Even though growing cotton in such unpredictable situations, the production of cotton

The percentage of slaves in Arkansas grew substantially from the 1830s to the 1860s, and by the 1860s over 111,000 slaves were living in Arkansas with over 11,000 owners. Only 12 percent of the slave owners owned twenty or more slaves, they were considered as “planters”. The typical slave owner usually owned no more than 4 slaves, but some had a little more. Though, the more that the production of cotton increased, the more that the slave population increased. In the book it stated that by 1850 in Chicot county only 23 percent of the population was white and the remaining 77 percent were slaves. Slaves during this time were mainly used for aiding on their owner’s farm. Slaves were not workers, the definition of a slave and a worker are two different things. The definition of a worker is someone who works, and the definition of work is a mental or physical activity as means of earning income. Now if you look up the definition if slave, it says that a slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. As you can see, they are definitely not the same. Again, slaves did not put in an application and go to an interview to work on the farm for ridiculous hours and horrible working conditions. They were once kidnapped then sold to farmers similar to the problem we have currently in our society, human