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Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery
A contract between Eli Whitney and the State of Tennessee for use of the cotton gin, 1807.

A contract between Eli Whitney and the State of Tennessee for use of the cotton gin, 1807.

The first page of this contract is a typed transcription and the remaining pages are the original handwritten contract. The contract gives the State of Tennessee patent rights to Eli Whitney’s cotton gin. After his invention, Whitney did not envision selling patent rights to his design. Instead, he planned to charge farmers fees for using gins that he built to process their cotton. But planters in Georgia where Whitney developed the gin began making their own versions and claiming they were "new" inventions. Struggling to turn a profit and bogged down by legal battles, Whitney and his partners agreed to license gins. In 1802, South Carolina agreed to purchase Whitney's patent right and North Carolina and Tennessee followed. Catherine Miller and Phineas Miller, mentioned in the contract, were a married couple who supported Whitney’s invention and invested in his cotton gin business. The Millers were neighbors of the Georgia plantation where Whitney was a tutor when he built his first cotton gin model. Phineas Miller died before this contract was created.

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Citation Information
“Eli Whitney cotton gin contract,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/8a7f0d605855a20616536112304586f5.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives via Digital Library of Tennessee.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 3 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery

Previous ItemNext Item
A photograph of a cotton plant in bloom.
A reproduction of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin model, patented in 1794.
A contract between Eli Whitney and the State of Tennessee for use of the cotton gin, 1807.
A petition by Eli Whitney to the US Congress requesting renewal of his cotton gin patent, 1812.
An excerpt from an 1898 book about cotton that details the invention of the saw gin and the ginning and baling processes.
An 1868 advertisement from the Albany Cotton Gin Manufacturing Company for the Star Cotton Gin and Condenser.
A map of US cotton production in 1880 with charts showing figures for the import and export of cotton from 1821 to 1880.
A map of the agricultural regions of the United States, showing changes in cotton production between 1839 and 1924.
A map showing the distribution of the population of enslaved people in the United States, 1861.
A broadside advertising an auction of forty-four enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina, 1859-1860.
An illustration of enslaved people laboring on a cotton plantation, 1859.
A photograph of African American women and children in a cotton field, 1860s.
A stereo card depicting African American women and children picking cotton in a field.
A stereo card of an African American worker beside a cotton gin.
A Harper’s Weekly illustration of enslaved people operating an early cotton gin, 1869.

These sets were created and reviewed by teachers. Explore resources and ideas for Using DPLA's Primary Source Sets in your classroom.

To give feedback, contact us at info@dp.la. You can also view resources for National History Day.

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