Empire of Cotton

Empire of Cotton Plot Summary

Introduction

In the summer of 1784, a quiet revolution began in a small valley near Manchester, England. Samuel Greg, a British merchant, gathered a few newfangled spinning machines, orphaned children, and a supply of Caribbean cotton to establish Quarry Bank Mill. For the first time in human history, machines powered by non-animate energy manufactured cotton yarn on an industrial scale. This seemingly local event would transform the world economy and reshape global power relations for centuries to come. The story of cotton is the story of the modern world itself. Through this humble fiber, we can trace how European powers built empires, how slavery and wage labor coexisted and reinforced each other, and how industrial capitalism emerged from the violent foundations of colonial expansion. Cotton connected disparate regions and peoples in a web of exploitation and innovation that stretched from the slave plantations of the American South to the factories of Lancashire, from the colonial policies in India to the emergence of global supply chains. By following cotton across continents and centuries, we gain unique insights into the forces that created our modern global economy - with all its spectacular wealth and devastating inequality.

Chapter 1: War Capitalism: Colonial Foundations of the Cotton Trade (1600-1780)

For millennia, cotton had been grown and processed in disconnected regions across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In India, cotton textiles had been manufactured since at least 3000 BCE, with skilled artisans producing fabrics of such extraordinary fineness that Europeans later described them as "woven wind." In West Africa, cotton spinning and weaving were common household activities. In Mesoamerica, cotton was cultivated and woven into fabrics long before European arrival. These separate cotton worlds operated according to their own rhythms and patterns, with production primarily for local consumption or regional trade. Europe remained largely on the periphery of this global cotton story until the 16th century. The turning point came with two momentous events: Christopher Columbus's landing in the Americas in 1492, which set off history's greatest land grab, and Vasco da Gama's pioneering of a sea route to India in 1497, which gave Europeans direct access to the world's dominant cotton producers. These voyages allowed European merchants to insert themselves, often violently, into global cotton networks. European powers - particularly Britain, France, and the Netherlands - began establishing colonial outposts and trading stations across the globe. They expropriated land in the Americas, forcibly transported millions of enslaved Africans to work on plantations, and used military power to dominate trade routes. This system, which historian Sven Beckert calls "war capitalism," relied on the capacity of Europeans to divide the world into an "inside" (where state-enforced order ruled) and an "outside" (characterized by imperial domination, expropriation, and violence). By the late 18th century, European merchants had dramatically reshaped global cotton networks. The English East India Company and other European trading companies established outposts in India, using their military power to gain control over textile production. They forced Indian weavers to produce exclusively for European markets, often under brutal conditions. Meanwhile, European merchants began shipping enslaved Africans to the Americas, where cotton would eventually be grown on an unprecedented scale. This violent reorganization of global cotton production and trade laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution that would soon transform Britain and then the world. European merchants accumulated vast wealth by controlling the movement of cotton goods across continents, purchasing Indian textiles with silver from the Americas and trading them for slaves in Africa. These profits would later finance the technological innovations and factory systems that would revolutionize cotton manufacturing in Europe.

Chapter 2: Industrial Revolution: Machines, Slavery and Factory Labor (1780-1860)

The late 18th century witnessed an unprecedented transformation in cotton manufacturing, beginning in Britain. Between 1780 and 1815, a series of mechanical innovations revolutionized the industry: John Kay's flying shuttle (1733), James Hargreaves' spinning jenny (1760s), Richard Arkwright's water frame (1769), and Samuel Crompton's spinning mule (1779). These inventions dramatically increased productivity - what once took a spinner 50,000 hours could now be accomplished in just a few hundred. The revolution began in unlikely places - small valleys and rural areas around Manchester where entrepreneurs like Samuel Greg established water-powered cotton mills. These early industrialists drew on the networks constructed during the previous two centuries of war capitalism. Greg himself owned slave plantations in the Caribbean, which provided both capital and raw materials for his manufacturing ventures. The wages of war capitalism - slavery, colonial domination, and militarized trade - provided the fertile soil from which industrial capitalism would sprout. As cotton factories spread across Europe and North America, they required a new kind of labor force - one that would work for wages under the discipline of machines and clocks. Factory owners initially recruited the most vulnerable members of society - children, women, and the desperately poor. In Lancashire cotton factories in 1833, 36% of workers were under sixteen. Working conditions were appalling. Fourteen to sixteen-hour workdays were common. Factories were hot, humid, dusty, and deafeningly noisy. Injuries were frequent, and workers' health suffered dramatically. The story of Ellen Hootton, a ten-year-old girl who testified before a British parliamentary commission in 1833 about being beaten and punished with iron weights for failing to keep up with her work, exemplifies the harsh realities faced by the first generation of factory workers. Meanwhile, the explosive growth of American cotton production was enabled by a perfect storm of factors. The invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin in 1793 made it profitable to grow short-staple cotton, which could thrive in vast inland areas. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and other territorial acquisitions provided enormous tracts of fertile land. Most crucially, the forced relocation of Native Americans and the massive expansion of slavery provided the land and labor needed for cotton cultivation on an unprecedented scale. By 1860, the United States supplied 77% of Britain's cotton, 90% of France's, and 92% of Russia's. Cotton became America's most valuable export, accounting for more than half of all U.S. exports by value. The cotton complex that emerged during this period represented a paradoxical combination of slavery and capitalism. While industrial capitalism in Europe emphasized free labor, its raw material came primarily from enslaved labor in the American South. Cotton planters embraced modern financial techniques, scientific agriculture, and global market integration while simultaneously defending human bondage. As South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond famously declared in 1858, "Cotton is king," expressing the confidence that the world's dependence on slave-grown cotton would protect the institution of slavery itself. By 1860, cotton had become the foundation of a new global economic order. The industry employed millions of workers across multiple continents and represented the world's most valuable trade goods. It had transformed landscapes from Mississippi to Manchester, created new forms of wealth and poverty, and established patterns of global interdependence that would endure for generations. Yet this system remained fundamentally unstable, dependent on slavery in the American South and imperial control in Asia.

Chapter 3: Civil War Crisis: Reshaping Global Cotton Networks (1861-1875)

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, beginning the American Civil War. This conflict would transform not just the United States but the entire global cotton industry. As Union naval blockades tightened around southern ports, the flow of American cotton to world markets slowed to a trickle. In 1860, the United States had exported 3.8 million bales of cotton; by 1862, exports had plummeted to just 55,000 bales. The resulting "cotton famine" devastated manufacturing regions dependent on American cotton. In Lancashire, 485,000 workers were unemployed or on short time by December 1862. Mills closed across Europe. Cotton prices skyrocketed - from 7.5 pence per pound in January 1861 to 27.5 pence in July 1864. The crisis revealed the dangerous dependence of global industry on slave-grown American cotton and shattered Southern assumptions that "King Cotton" made the Confederacy invulnerable to outside pressure. European merchants and manufacturers responded by frantically searching for new sources of cotton. British cotton interests formed the Cotton Supply Association to promote cotton cultivation in India, Egypt, Brazil, and other regions. Colonial officials in India built railroads to transport cotton from the interior to ports and pressured peasants to grow cotton for export. Egyptian ruler Ismail Pasha expanded irrigation systems to increase cotton production in the Nile Delta. Brazilian planters brought in new machinery and European immigrants to boost their output. These efforts succeeded in creating a new geography of cotton production. By 1865, India had replaced the United States as Britain's primary cotton supplier. Egyptian cotton exports grew from 600,000 cantars in 1861 to 2.1 million in 1865. The politics of cotton also underwent a profound transformation during this period. Before the conflict, many European observers had accepted Southern claims that slavery was essential to cotton production. The war shattered these assumptions. Despite economic hardship, British workers largely supported the Union cause and opposed intervention on behalf of the slave-holding Confederacy. Meanwhile, the successful expansion of cotton cultivation in regions without slavery demonstrated that the fiber could be produced under various labor systems. When the Civil War ended in 1865 with Union victory and the abolition of slavery, American cotton faced a transformed global landscape. The post-Civil War years saw intense struggles over the reorganization of cotton production in the American South. Freed people sought land, autonomy, and fair compensation for their labor. Former slaveholders attempted to recreate plantation discipline through sharecropping, debt peonage, and violence. The federal government initially supported freedpeople's aspirations but ultimately abandoned them to white southern rule. By the 1870s, a new system of racialized labor control had emerged, allowing American cotton production to recover and eventually surpass pre-war levels. The Civil War crisis accelerated long-term shifts in the global cotton industry. It permanently weakened American dominance, creating a more diversified supply network. It hastened the integration of peasant producers in India, Egypt, and elsewhere into global markets. And it demonstrated that cotton cultivation could thrive without slavery, though often under other coercive labor systems. The empire of cotton had survived its greatest crisis, but emerged fundamentally transformed.

Chapter 4: Imperial Expansion: New Cotton Frontiers and Colonial Control (1875-1920)

The half-century following the American Civil War witnessed an unprecedented expansion of cotton cultivation across the globe, driven by the imperial ambitions of European powers and the insatiable demand of textile manufacturers. This period saw cotton frontiers pushed into new territories in Africa, Central Asia, and East Asia, dramatically reshaping landscapes and societies in the process. Colonial powers systematically developed cotton production in their overseas possessions. Britain promoted cotton growing in India, Egypt, and parts of Africa; France focused on West Africa and Algeria; Germany established cotton schemes in Togo and German East Africa; and Russia expanded cultivation in Central Asia. The German Colonial Economic Committee, founded in 1896, exemplified this approach, recruiting African American experts from Tuskegee Institute to establish cotton farms in Togo and distributing American cotton seeds to African farmers. By 1920, these imperial cotton projects had brought millions of acres of new land under cultivation. These imperial cotton projects relied on new forms of labor coercion that replaced outright slavery. Colonial authorities imposed head taxes payable only in cash, forcing peasants to grow cotton for sale. They established "cultivation zones" where farmers were legally required to plant cotton. In the Belgian Congo, colonial officials enforced cotton quotas through brutal punishments. Even where formal coercion was absent, economic pressures and debt peonage often trapped farmers in cotton production against their interests. As one observer noted of Egyptian peasants in the early 20th century, they lived a "gloomy and uninteresting existence" despite producing some of the world's finest cotton. The expansion of cotton cultivation was facilitated by massive infrastructure investments. Colonial governments built railroads, irrigation systems, and ports specifically designed to extract cotton from the interior and ship it to European factories. The British constructed an extensive rail network in India, while the Russians built the Trans-Caspian Railway to access Central Asian cotton. These projects transformed landscapes and ecological systems, often with devastating environmental consequences including deforestation, soil erosion, and water depletion. Scientific and technical expertise became increasingly important to imperial cotton projects. Colonial departments of agriculture established research stations, distributed improved seeds, and sent agronomists to advise farmers. The Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, established by the British government in 1921, conducted research on cotton varieties, pest control, and cultivation methods throughout the empire. These institutions represented a new, more systematic approach to agricultural development that combined scientific knowledge with imperial power. A remarkable aspect of this period was the transnational collaboration among cotton interests. In 1904, cotton manufacturers from various European countries formed the International Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' and Manufacturers' Associations to address common concerns about raw material supplies. Colonial cotton projects frequently exchanged expertise and techniques across imperial boundaries. This collaboration revealed how cotton had become central to imperial rivalries, with access to supplies and markets shaping international relations in the decades leading up to World War I. By 1920, cotton had become thoroughly embedded in imperial systems worldwide. The fiber connected metropoles to colonies through complex networks of production, trade, and finance. Colonial subjects from West Africa to Central Asia experienced cotton imperialism as a powerful force reshaping their lives and landscapes. Yet this imperial cotton system contained fundamental contradictions. The very success of colonial development created the conditions for anti-colonial movements, as cotton workers and farmers organized to resist exploitation.

Chapter 5: Global South Rising: Manufacturing Returns to Asia (1920-1970)

Between 1920 and 1970, the global cotton industry underwent a profound geographical reorientation, with manufacturing capacity shifting decisively from Europe and North America toward Asia and other regions of the global South. This transformation began in the interwar period, when textile industries emerged or expanded significantly in countries like India, China, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. In Ahmedabad, Indian industrialists like Ambalal Sarabhai built modern cotton mills that competed successfully with British imports. Similarly, Chinese entrepreneurs established factories in Shanghai and other coastal cities, while Japanese companies created the world's most efficient cotton manufacturing sector. This industrial shift reflected changing power dynamics in the global economy. Rising labor costs and union activism in Europe and the United States made textile manufacturing less profitable there, while protective tariffs in developing countries created sheltered markets for domestic producers. In the United States, cotton mills moved from New England to the South, where wages were lower and labor less organized. By 1925, the South had more spindles than the North, reversing their previous relationship. In Japan, domestic entrepreneurs like Shibusawa Eiichi established modern cotton mills in the 1880s, using low-wage female labor and government support to build a competitive industry that by the 1930s exported more cotton cloth than Britain. Nationalist movements in colonized territories increasingly connected economic independence with political sovereignty. In India, Mahatma Gandhi made cotton spinning a powerful symbol of resistance to British rule, encouraging Indians to boycott imported textiles and produce their own cloth. The swadeshi (self-sufficiency) movement linked economic nationalism with anti-colonial politics, making cotton central to independence struggles. Indian nationalists like Gandhi found common cause with industrialists like Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, who invested in modern factories while advocating for protective tariffs against British imports. World War II and its aftermath accelerated these trends. The war disrupted traditional trade patterns and damaged European manufacturing capacity, creating opportunities for producers in other regions. The subsequent wave of decolonization removed imperial preferences that had privileged metropolitan manufacturers, allowing newly independent nations to pursue industrialization strategies centered on textile production. Countries like India, Pakistan, and Egypt implemented import substitution policies that protected domestic cotton industries while developing export capacity. In Communist countries, state-directed industrialization dramatically expanded cotton manufacturing. After the 1949 revolution, the Chinese government nationalized existing mills and built hundreds of new ones. Production expanded enormously, with China's share of global cotton consumption rising from 5.7% in 1950 to 17% by 1980. Unlike in market economies, Chinese textile production initially focused almost entirely on domestic consumption, providing basic clothing for the population while limiting imports. The Soviet Union similarly transformed Central Asian agriculture to increase cotton production, which grew by 70 percent between 1950 and 1966 through state-directed irrigation projects and mechanization. By the 1960s, the cotton industry's center of gravity had shifted decisively. Lancashire's once-dominant mills closed in large numbers, with the Liverpool Cotton Exchange finally shutting its doors in 1963. Meanwhile, developing countries increasingly controlled not just raw cotton production but manufacturing as well. This transformation reflected broader changes in the global economy, including decolonization, the Cold War's impact on development strategies, and the emergence of new industrial powers. The cotton industry that had once epitomized Western industrial dominance now increasingly reflected the economic rise of the global South.

Chapter 6: Corporate Revolution: Fast Fashion and Global Supply Chains (1970-2000)

The final decades of the twentieth century brought yet another reorganization of the global cotton industry as corporate retailers replaced both manufacturers and states as the dominant actors. This shift fundamentally altered how cotton moved from field to factory to consumer, creating new patterns of global inequality while further diminishing the industry's importance in Europe and North America. By the 1970s, giant retailers like Walmart in the United States, Carrefour in France, and later companies like Gap and Nike began to control global supply chains by sourcing cotton products from the cheapest manufacturers worldwide. These corporations owned no factories or farms but used their purchasing power to dictate prices, quality standards, and delivery schedules to suppliers. This "buyer-driven" commodity chain allowed retailers to pit manufacturers against each other, driving down costs and shifting production to wherever labor was cheapest. China emerged as the undisputed center of global cotton manufacturing during this period. After economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping opened China to foreign investment and export-oriented industrialization, the country rapidly expanded its textile and apparel industries. By 2000, China contained nearly half the world's spindles and looms, working up 43 percent of the global cotton harvest. Chinese factories combined modern technology with low wages and limited labor rights to dominate global markets, forcing manufacturers in higher-wage countries out of business. The dismantling of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement between 1995 and 2005 removed longstanding quotas that had protected textile industries in developed countries, accelerating the industry's migration to lower-cost regions. This trade liberalization, combined with technological innovations in communication and transportation, allowed for increasingly complex and geographically dispersed production networks. A single cotton garment might involve cotton grown in West Africa, spun in India, woven in China, sewn in Bangladesh, and sold in Europe or North America, with each step controlled by different corporate entities. Labor conditions remained a central concern in the modern cotton complex. In manufacturing, tragedies like the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh highlighted dangerous working conditions in the garment industry. In Bangladesh, garment workers earned some of the world's lowest wages while working in dangerous conditions. Even in China, workers faced harsh conditions, though rising wages there eventually pushed some production to even lower-wage countries like Vietnam and Cambodia. Meanwhile, cotton farmers in developing countries often struggled with debt, volatile prices, and environmental challenges. The rise of "fast fashion" in the 1990s and 2000s further transformed the industry. Retailers like H&M and Zara pioneered business models based on rapidly changing styles, quick production turnaround, and low prices. This approach accelerated consumption cycles while putting additional pressure on manufacturers to reduce costs and delivery times. The environmental impact of this system became increasingly apparent, with cotton cultivation contributing to water depletion, soil degradation, and chemical pollution, while textile manufacturing generated significant carbon emissions and waste. By the end of the 20th century, the cotton industry had come full circle in some ways. Once again, Asia dominated global manufacturing, though now with factory production rather than household industry. Once again, merchants controlled the movement of cotton goods across continents, though now as corporate retailers rather than individual traders. And once again, cotton connected the fates of millions of people worldwide, from farmers in West Africa to factory workers in Bangladesh to consumers in Europe and North America, in a complex web of interdependence and inequality.

Summary

The global empire of cotton reveals the fundamental interconnections between seemingly disparate historical developments: European industrialization, American slavery, Asian deindustrialization, and modern globalization. Throughout its history, cotton has linked distant regions and diverse peoples in networks of production and consumption, while simultaneously creating profound inequalities between them. The industry's evolution demonstrates how capitalism has continuously reorganized itself geographically, moving from region to region in search of cheaper labor, more abundant resources, and more favorable political conditions. From its beginnings in war capitalism - with its slavery, colonialism, and expropriation - to the industrial capitalism of European factories, to today's corporate-dominated global supply chains, cotton has been central to the development of the modern world economy. This history offers crucial insights for understanding our contemporary global economy. First, it reminds us that economic development has never followed a single, universal path. The success of early industrializers like Britain depended on specific historical conditions that could not be replicated elsewhere. Second, it highlights the central role of state power in shaping economic outcomes. From British imperialism to American subsidies to Chinese industrial policy, government actions have been decisive in determining where cotton is grown and manufactured. Finally, it suggests that today's global inequalities are not natural or inevitable, but the product of historical processes that continue to unfold. By recognizing these historical patterns, we gain critical perspective on today's global inequalities and the ongoing struggles for economic justice and sustainability in our interconnected world. Understanding this history is essential for addressing the persistent challenges of labor exploitation, environmental degradation, and uneven development that continue to characterize the global cotton industry today.

About Author

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Sven Beckert

The Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University, Sven Beckert is co-chair of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard and co-chair of the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History. Professor Beckert researches and teaches the history of the United States in the 19th century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political, and transnational dimensions. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library, among others.

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