The Second
Middle Passage

THE COTTON GIN

Then we'll talk...

The cotton gin was patented in 1794.

U.S. cotton production by year

The cotton gin processed
what enslaved people picked.

The U.S. quit participating in
the international slave trade in 1808.

Before 1808, 388,000 Africans transported to U.S.
In 1808, 3.9 million African-descended slaves in the U.S.
Between 1787 & 1961, 1 million were relocated from the Upper South to the Deep South, mostly through the domestic slave trade
Of the 3.2 million enslaved people across 15 slave states in 1850,
1.8 million worked in cotton

$500
avg. price per slave in New Orleans in 1800

$1,800

avg. price per slave in New Orleans in 1850

That's like a price going from
$9,500 to $55,000 today!