Zhu Wencong was very familiar with the Whitney family, after all, they were his peers and outstanding figures of this era.
Founder John Whitney immigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts from London, England in 1635, and The Elms, an historic estate in Watertown, was built by the Whitney family in 1710.
The most famous member was Eli Whitney, who in 1793 invented the cotton gin, a machine that increased the cotton-picking speed of slaves by 50 times, a breakthrough that led to America supplying 75% of the world's cotton and also resulted in a rapid increase in the demand for slaves.
Law professor Paul Finkelman later pointed out in the "Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities" that before the invention of the cotton gin, slavery was a profitable investment, but after its invention, it was an even more profitable investment.
