The Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery Westward

Northern Abolition, Western Expansion, and the Domestic Slave Trade

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Explain how Eli Whitney's cotton gin made short-staple cotton profitable and fueled the aggressive spread of plantation slavery into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

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Northern Abolition, Western Expansion, and the Domestic Slave Trade

4th Grade · Social Studies · US-MA-SS

10 lessons

Goal

Analyze the state-by-state abolition of slavery in the North, the ban on transatlantic slave importation in 1808, and the expansion of the domestic slave trade into the western states.

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5.T5.1Massachusetts Social Studies Standards · 5th Grade

Trace the state-by-state abolition of slavery in the Northern states in the 18th and 19th centuries and the expansion of slavery into western states; explain the effects of the 1808 law that banned the importation of slaves into the United States and explain how a robust slave trade nonetheless continued within the United States until the mid-19th century.