HIUS 316_D09_Final_Paper_Chaz_Kennedy.docx-19.docx

Chaz Kennedy

Liberty University

Professor Stewart

HIUS 316-D09

December 10, 2018

hardships and to win in those battles which should have been lost. This is what has grown

America from the start. This great nation has learned from its difficult past and is always looking

to the future. The future is to grow America in the sense that they wanted to be self-sufficient to

where they did not have to depend on other countries for supplies. This is where farmers came

into the picture to grow what was needed to make important items besides food. The way of life

for Andrew Jackson and other farmers, during the early 1800s. Has helped shape this country in

many ways. On this vast journey of information in this paper, there will be farmers have made it

through some of the toughest decisions that had to be made for this country. Farming during the

1800s was no piece of cake, but a work ethic and determination are what built the farms that

transformed our nation.

self-employment, heading a household of one’s own, and owning real estate in fee simple clear

of mortgage indebtedness” [8]. This meaning that everyone wants to own land and be debt free.

This was not simply done, for several reasons. One reason is that “the synthesis of agriculture

and commerce practiced had profound cultural as well as economic consequences in the early

nineteenth-century United States” [8]. The only way that they could make their vision of the

family farm work is by “strengthened their purposefulness and reinforced the dignity of their

labor and thrift” [8]. Meaning, if they wanted it, they had to work for it without handouts from

the government. Farms and other lands were sold at auctions. Many farms sold starting at “$200-

$1,000” [6] for some farms could be as few as 1 acre all the way to “100acres that included

everything they owned” [4]. This was not much when families have farmed this land for years. If

to buy it cheaper from overseas and sell it cheaper than what they could get it far from a local

farmer. This hurt farmers and many farms failed. One commodity that was very important to the

United States was cotton. Cotton was used a majority for clothing. Even though “the difficulties

in processing short-staple greenseed cotton into textiles had earlier been surmounted through a

series of technological innovations culminating in the development of the cotton gin” [8]. This

invention by a young man named Eli Whitney helped farmers everywhere in the south. The only

“sold their land, farmhouses, they also sold their cotton gin” [2]. This new farm equipment

helped in producing cotton in a bigger number, but farmers could only do so “whenever the soil

was suitable, and the farmer could count on two hundred frost-free days in the year, short-staple

cotton suddenly became an economically attractive crop” [8]. These farmers could have a mass

“production in the U.S. that allowed cotton to soar from 73,000 in bales in 1800 to ten times that

in 1820” [8]. Which during the time of “1815 cotton is by far the most important agricultural

export” [13] and this was the crop everyone around the world needed. This is what helped the

U.S. to grow in many ways and the best way was making it an “expansion of transatlantic

industrial capitalism, making it enormously enhanced importance to the U.S. in the world

economy” [8]. If it would not have been for the cotton gin the farmers would not have been able

not, everyone could go to the bank and borrow money, so “farmers, shopkeepers, and crop

merchants developed their own informal systems for credit” [5]. Credit was easier for farmers to

pay back and sometimes they would barter for things they needed. This was mostly done

between small farmers. However, there were several economic difficulties that every farmer

“faced was the overproduction. The reason being that the amount of land under cultivation

increased dramatically and new farmers techniques produced greater and greater yields” [9].

to have to borrow and become hopelessly in debt when it was harvest time. The reason being that

they had higher prices to pay for goods their families needed, while they themselves were

uncertain when they sold their goods at what price they would get for them. The second major

struggle is transportation. The railroads were important to farmers, no matter the size of the farm,

the railroads helped get their crops to the right destinations. To them to ship their products, even

a short distance, would cost them immensely compared to manufacture would have to pay for

longer distances of travel. This is when “people throughout the U.S. recognized the need for a

better transportation system. The Great Migration had increased the number of agricultural

producers wanting to get their crops from the interior to national or international markets” [8].

But they still ran into the issue of the cost to transport their products.

money to buy what they needed, they also had to borrow money to pay for workers. They needed

Since there were not many of these companies around at the time, they could name their price for

building this equipment. Especially, when it was customized to what the farmer needed to

harvest or plant those crops with. For many farmers that planted cotton needed help picking it

and this is where “slavery was cultivated” [8]. Farmers found it easier to buy slaves to help them

harvest their crops which did not always include cotton. Slaves were easier to buy, then to pay

someone to come and work on the farms. The farmers saw them as animals and treated them like

did not have many and this meant that the family also got in the fields and helped pick the

crops.

Some small farms did not have slaves because they had big families, which were very common.

They used their children to help plant and harvest, care for the farm, and help with daily chores.

This was even true for the families that had more girls than boys, even though the father wanted

sons so that they could work with them and one day give them the farm.

They were the ones who fought to make it easier for future farmers, such as farmers today.

Some of the smaller farms have made it because they learned how to deal with struggles. They

learned from their fathers of how to deal with hot summers that caused drought, how to keep pest

crops everywhere in the world, without having to face the struggles the farmers during this Era

had to face. Cotton is still a high commodity cash crop and is made into more items besides

clothes.

People who want to become farmers can now receive help from the government to get started.

This is one reason cotton has made its way back into the south. The farmers of the Jacksonian

“weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves

with him” (Psalm 126:6, ESV). They have done it for God and he repaid them with the joy of the

harvest they received. This is the reason why everyone should thank a farmer, for if it was not for

the hardships, struggles, and their work ethic, there would not be a self-sufficient nation to which

the world knows as the United States of America.

Congress Information Bulletin. Accessed December 14, 2018.

https:// www.loc.gov/resource/maj.01109_0095_0099/?sp=5 .

Accessed October 25, 2018.

http://www.tn4me.org/article.cfm/a_id/182/minor_id/64/major_id/21/era_id/4.

http://www.worthingtonhistory.org/_Resources Links/Articles/Farming_in_the_1820s/farmin

g_in_the_1820s.html.