Cotton and Creek Country

Cotton and Creek Country. . A primary factor in the eventual expulsion of the Creeks from their ancestral homeland was the fact that their territory was some of the best suited in the nation for the production of cotton. Containing enormous tracts of productive soils, a long growing season, mild climate and rivers for transportation of crops to markets, Creek lands were perfectly suited for nineteenth century agriculture. As the United States experienced dramatic population growth in the era and worldwide demand for cotton skyrocketed, Americans exerted tremendous pressure on the Creeks for the cession of their lands. Cotton, more than any other single factor, became the item that brought about the swift transformation of Creek country from wilderness domain to one of the primary cotton production areas of the South., The Chattahoochee Valley played an important role in this transition. Large-scale cotton farming took place here as early as the 1820s, and by the 1830s it had become one of South's most prolific cotton corridors. By 1845 over 150,000 bales annually were exported from the port of Apalachicola, each of which weighed several hundred pounds. A large portion of this cotton was shipped overseas for use in British textile mills, enabling this area to assume a pivotal position in worldwide trade networks., [Insert-Middle Bottom] , Cotton and the Cotton Gin , The enormous amounts of labor required to produce cotton in large quantities prohibited its adoption as a staple crop prior to Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793. Not only was tending and picking the crop backbreaking work, but cotton bolls have numerous seeds which must be removed before the fiber can be processed. Whitney's famous invention transformed the South into the world's leading center of cotton production within a few decades by dramatically reducing the time and effort it took to separate the seeds from the bolls. Dozens of copies of Whitney's design appeared throughout the region virtually overnight, and by the 1830s, gins of varying sizes could be found on virtually every large farm and plantation throughout the Chattahoochee Valley., [Insert-Top Right] , Many Creeks actively participated in cotton agriculture in the Chattahoochee Valley region. By the first decades of the nineteenth century several prominent Creek leaders in this area were managing slave-operated plantations alongside those of their American neigbors (sic). While slavery as practiced by the Creeks is generally regarded as less severe than the institution as administered by Americans, Creeks bought, sold, and employed slaves in the production of cotton in large numbers., [Photo captions] , Left-middle: Cotton warehouses in Apalachicola, Florida , Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Left-bottom: Steamboat Shamrock at the Apalachicola wharf , Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Middle: Loading cotton on the steamboat City of Eufaula , Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, Bottom-middle: Boll of cotton and detailed view of cotton before ginning, Right-top: Nineteenth century lithograph depicting slaves picking cotton , Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Right-bottom: A depiction of the first cotton gin , Courtesy of the Library of Congress