Yeah, slave labor is cheap, but have you ever picked cotton? It's a special kind of hell. Grew some because I thought my daughter would love it. Nope, she didn't care.

When it's ready to pick the boll pops open and the leaves turn hard and sharp. First time I stuck my finger in there, the edge instantly slid under my skin 15mm. So sharp it hardly bled vs. damage done. I couldn't replicate that wound so quickly with a pocket knife. It's like a flower surrounded by scalpels.

Despite immediate and modern first aid, antiseptics, antibiotics, changing bandages, etc., it was so infected it took three weeks to heal and I couldn't bend that finger for two. For comparison, I can heal a deep scratch in 3-days (with a hydrocolloid bandaid).

Dad was a bouncer, told me the trick was to never get hit because 5 fights a week, 5 small wounds, shit adds add up because you can't heal that fast. Imagine catching one cotton-picking wound a day. By the end of the week you won't be able to make a fist.

Seems like you could just be careful? Nah, forgot to mention, you often can't see the blades. Also, you have to gather enough, fast enough, to make a buck. Takes me a couple minutes to clear one raggedy plant, imagine football fields worth of tall, healthy plants. Now how are you gonna pay someone enough to pick it fast enough? You're gonna need slaves because you can't whip a free man into doing that shit fast enough.

On top of that, getting the seeds out was hell before the cotton gin. I invite you to try it for yourself, and please don't waste the cotton threads. In that second pic, there are easily 25 seeds in there. Again, shitloads of labor for small gain. Slaves were the only way to make a buck. In supreme irony, the cotton gin jump started the South's cotton plantations and gave them a reason to acquire more slaves.

Do this fast, bent at the waist, from just before sunup to just after sundown. Every day. Until you die.

tl;dr: Slavery was worse than most think for the cotton picking alone.

Let's lighten the mood! This shit has had me howling for over a decade.

Picking cotton on a racist fieldtrip