Remote Learning Resources: Slavery and the Cotton Economy

From 1823, when Lowell’s first mill opened, until the end of the Civil War in 1865, the city’s textile industry depended on raw cotton farmed and processed by enslaved people in the southern United States. Lowell’s mills relied on the cheap cotton produced by enslaved African Americans forced to work in dehumanizing conditions. Workers in Lowell’s mills were fully aware of this and many became abolitionists. At the same time, many of the mill owners proclaimed their pro-south, anti-abolitionist sympathies. 

Documents in this collection, "Enslaved Labor and the Land," explore the connection between enslaved people and the land, including cotton plantations, sustenance gardens, and pine forests. Other featured documents highlight the complicity between textile mill owners in Lowell and plantation owners in the south.

You can choose to use the documents in a lesson of your own design, or with the questions we’ve developed. 

In this lesson plan, "Slavery and the American South," students use primary sources to examine the institution of chattel slavery in the United States and achieve a better understanding of the lives of enslaved people on Southern plantations.

This short excerpt, "Lowell's Southern Connection," from Lowell National Historical Park’s handbook provides historical context for the connection between Lowell and the institution of slavery.