ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by factories,

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workplaces with a firm commitment

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to the truth.

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Mm-hmm.

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All right, first up, the excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right. Oh, Loom and Spindle Magazine.

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That's an awesome mag. Yeah. Yeah.

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All right. That was a real rag in those days.

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All right, and now the question:

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How did the development described in the excerpt

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contribute to the continued slave trade in the United States?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right.

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Well, after the Industrial Revolution reached the United States,

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textile mills began to pop up across the country,

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particularly in the slave-free states of New England.

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Let's see what kind of an impact these new-fangled machines

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had on the slave trade down south.

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Did the introduction of textile machinery

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affect the slave trade because A -

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plantation owners earned additional money by

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buying mills in the North?

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Well, plantation owners had plenty of cash coming in

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from their agricultural business,

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so there was very little need to diversify.

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So that's a no-go on A.

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Did this new textile machinery impact the slave economy because

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B - mill owners allowed their buildings

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to be used as sites for slave auctions?

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Huh.

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Well, many of these mills were located in the North,

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so their owners claimed very publicly to be against slavery.

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So that knocks out B and C.

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Which means that the development of new textile technologies

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contributed to the continued slave trade because D -

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mills relied on raw materials produced through slave labor.

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Remember how the mill owners

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publicly claimed to be against slavery?

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Well, many of their products depended

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on the southern cotton industry, which was sustained

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by the work of slave labor.

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Hypocrisy.com here we come.

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Talk about a battle between bleeding hearts and corporate minds.

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Good luck with that.

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[ gasp ] [ how dare you ]

Full Transcript