The American History Podcast, Season 2, Episode 17, Slavery in Antebellum America.

Welcome to the American History Podcast.

Hosted by Sean Worswick.

Thank you. hosted by Sean Worswick. I know I promised that I would be giving you guys two bonus episodes or bonus topics.

One was the California Gold Rush, and the other was going to be on the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War.

I'm going to have to put those on the back burner for the time being.

Now, I really hate doing that, but I will be covering Tet when I do a season on the Vietnam War,

which I keep promising, and I don't know exactly if that's going to be season four or season five or something, but we're going to do a season on the Vietnam War.

So I figured what's the point in doing Tet?

The other thing is, as for the California Gold Rush, I will do that at some point, hopefully this year.

But right now I really want to get through this season first.

So I felt like it would just be best for us to put that one on the back burner as well.

Now, I will say for this episode, just like the previous episode, it is a bit longer than I intended to make it.

Now, I apologize for that, but I got a little carried away with the narrative, and I just thought there was too much important stuff here to simply stop. So hopefully you will enjoy this one,

as much as I enjoyed writing it and researching it.

And let's get started.

Okay, so first of all, let's talk for a moment about the product that really led to the rise of slavery in the 19th century.

And that product, of course, was cotton.

In general, prior to 1793 in the invention of the cotton

gin by Eli Whitney, the southern economy was to some extent somewhat weak. Prices were down,

the products that were being made weren't exactly all that remarkable, and the economy was

based on a risky system of slaves.

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