That is also true, the cotton gin wasn’t the total economic turning point, and the Civil War pre-dated automation’s economic turning of the corner against some economic measures of slavery’s cost, but slavery has very difficult to quantify costs, it was an entrenched lifestyle much more than a pool of day labor hanging out at Home Depot waiting for work, where both employers and employees could easily change their ways on very short notice.

After the Civil War it looks like “free person” cotton harvesting labor persisted until about 1926 - that could have changed earlier, but farm owners needed a kick in the butt to figure out how to improve:

printmag.com/…/lessons-from-cottons-slow-motion-r…