It was here that Pima Indians cultivated various cotton hybrids seeking ideal traits. However, the very cotton that provided the South with such economic potency also increased its reliance on the larger U.S. and world markets, which suppliedamong other thingsthe food and clothes slaves needed, the furniture and other manufactured goods that defined the southern standard of comfortable living, and the banks from which southerners borrowed needed funds. Cotton accounted for over half of all American exports during the first half of the 19th century. d. The slaves had to be watched to keep them from running away. accessed May 01, 2023, In 1879 some 2,178,435 acres produced 805,284 bales. However, following the War of 1812, a huge increase in production resulted in the so-called cotton boom, and by midcentury, cotton became the key cash crop (a crop grown to sell rather than for the farmers sole use) of the southern economy and the most important American commodity. As the chief crop[citation needed], the southern part of the United States prospered thanks to its slavery-dependent economy. [citation needed]. [7], Native Americans were observed growing cotton by the Coronado expedition in the early 1540s. A demand for it already existed in the industrial textile mills in Great Britain, and in time, a steady stream of slave-grown American cotton would also supply northern textile mills. The Souths dependence on cotton was matched by its dependence on slaves to harvest the cotton. These bales, weighing about four hundred to five hundred pounds, were wrapped in burlap cloth and sent down the Mississippi River. In the late 18th century, the process started in Great Britain where several inventions the spinning jenny, Cromptons spinning mule, and Cartwrights power loom revolutionized the textile industry. The ideal entry-level account for individual users. Mississippi and its neighbors Alabama, western Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas provided the cheap land that was suitable for cotton production. We are a community-supported, non-profit organization and we humbly ask for your support because the careful and accurate recording of our history has never been more important. Other combined counties in Missouri produced 15,800 bales in 2016. So, in a sense, Faulkners words could be reversed: To understand Mississippi, you have to understand the world.. In 1807, the U.S. Congress abolished the foreign slave trade, a ban that went into effect on January 1, 1808. Planting too early often results in stunted plants, poor stands, and lower yields. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many former tenants and sharecroppers returned to farmwork, but after the United States entered World War II in 1941, farmworkers moved again to the cities for work in war-related industries. b. Although the Jeffersonian vision of the settlement of new U.S. territories entailed white yeoman farmers single-handedly carving out small independent farms, the reality proved quite different. Only Mississippi (1,195,699 bales), Alabama (997,978 bales) and Louisiana (722,218 bales) produced more cotton. You need at least a Starter Account to use this feature. Related Questions. It dominated cotton production in the Mississippi River Valleyhome of the new slave states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missourias well as in other states like Texas. The enslaved population in the United States was approximately 700,000 at the time of the signing of the Constitution. Most impressively of all, "New England mills consumed 283.7 million pounds of cotton, or 67 percent of the 422.6 million pounds of cotton used by U.S. mills in 1860." As a commodity, cotton had the advantage of being easily stored and transported. The result was a large-scale exodus of the white and black cotton farmers from the south. Larger yields are obtained in Texas from early thinning than from late thinning. By 1860, the region was producing two-thirds of the worlds cotton. White America, not just White southerners, helped determine that the destiny of Black America would be in the cotton fields of the South for many decades to come. If the land has any appreciable slope, it should be terraced or contoured to prevent soil erosion and conserve water. Some slaveholders responded to this situation by freeing slaves; far more decided to sell their excess bondsmen. Over the centuries, cotton became a staple crop in American agriculture. [3], The average production of lint per acre in 1914 was estimated by the United States Department of Agriculture to be 209 pounds, a nominal change from 1911 when it was 208 pounds. The 1914-1915 season totaled 16.5 million bales. [2] Cotton production is a $21billion-per-year industry in the United States, employing over 125,000 people in total,[1] as against growth of forty billion pounds a year from 77 million acres of land covering more than eighty countries. [22], The cotton industry in the United States hit a crisis in the early 1920s. University of Oklahoma, 2002, Copyright 2023 Mississippi Historical Society [32] With eight production regions around Texas, and only four geographic regions, it is the state's leading cash crop. How many bales of cotton were produced in 1850? The steel module builder consists of a box large enough to hold 15,000 pounds (ten to twelve bales) of seed cotton, a cab, and a hydraulic tramper. [citation needed] Texas produces approximately 25% of the country's cotton crop on more than 6 million acres, the equivalent of over 9,000 square miles (23,000km2) of cotton fields. In the years before the Civil War, the South produced the bulk of the worlds supply of cotton. Following the War of 1812, cotton became the key cash crop of the southern economy and the most important American commodity. It is best not to plant until the soil has warmed up enough to ensure quick and uniform germination. [18] Three out of four black farm operators earned at least 40% of their income from cotton farming during this period. Cotton requires fertile soil for profitable yields. [37], From 1817, when it became a state, to 1860 Mississippi was the largest cotton-producing state in the United States. Indeed, American cotton soon made up two-thirds of the global supply, and production continued to soar. When the delegates wrote and agreed upon the Constitution, cotton production was virtually nonexistent in America. Because of British demand, cotton was vital to the American economy. Economics When war broke out, the Confederates refused to allow the export of cotton to Europe. Cottons profitability relied on the institution of slavery, which generated the product that fueled cotton mill profits in the North. Cotton Extension Program, University of Missouri Agricultural Extension, USDA NASS (used total production in pounds to determine rank), University of Missouri Extension - Southeast Missouri Crop Budgets, Cinderella of the New South: A History of the Cottonseed Industry, 1855-1955, Newspaper clippings about Cotton production in the United States, Agriculture in the Southwestern United States, Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cotton_production_in_the_United_States&oldid=1150392371, Agricultural production in the United States, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Beckert, Sven. US Department of Agriculture. The power of cotton on the world market may have brought wealth to the South, but it also increased its economic dependence on other countries and other parts of the United States. Transformative Learning in the Humanities, THE SOUTH IN THE AMERICAN AND WORLD MARKETS, Cotton is King: The Antebellum South, 18001860, The Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492, Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 14921650, Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 15001700, Rule Britannia! Nevertheless, Georgians raised 500,000 bales in 1850, second only to Alabama, and nearly 702,000 bales in 1860, behind Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. [33] Texas Cotton Producers includes nine certified cotton grower organizations; it addresses national and statewide cotton grower issues, such as the national farm bill and environmental legislation. The slave states of South Carolina and Georgia were adamant about having slavery protected by the Constitution. Whenever new slave states entered the Union, white slaveholders sent armies of slaves to clear the land in order to grow and pick the lucrative crop. In 1990, 74 percent of the Texas cotton crop was gathered by strippers and 26 percent by spindle pickers. By the late 1920s around two-thirds of all African-American tenants and almost three-fourths of the croppers worked on cotton farms, and two in three black women from black landowning families were involved in cotton farming. How does he characterize Freeman, the slave trader? As telegraph lines spread westward, cotton could be bought and sold on the world market faster than ever before. [7] The Hopson Planting Company produced the first crop of cotton to be entirely planted, harvested, and baled by machinery in 1944. Visit the Internet Archive to watch a 1937 WPA film showing cotton bales being loaded onto a steamboat. Cotton provoked a gold rush by attracting thousands of White men from the North and from older slave states along the Atlantic coast who came to make a quick fortune. After the seeds had been removed, the cotton was pressed into bales. Many of the trappings of domestic life, such as carpets, lamps, dinnerware, upholstered furniture, books, and musical instrumentsall the accoutrements of comfortable living for southern whiteswere made in either the North or Europe. a. "Globalization and Its Effects on Agriculture and Agribusiness in the Mississippi Delta: A Historical Overview and Prospects for the Future. Machines at the gin clean the trash from the fibers. Sometimes the cotton was dried before it was ginned (put through the process of separating the seeds from the cotton fiber). All told, the movement of slaves in the South made up one of the largest forced internal migrations in the United States. Statista. See also AGRICULTURE, COTTONSEED INDUSTRY, COTTON-COMPRESS INDUSTRY, TEXTILE INDUSTRY, FARM TENANCY, SLAVERY, ANTEBELLUM TEXAS, RECONSTRUCTION, LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY TEXAS, PROGRESSIVE ERA, and TEXAS IN THE 1920S. Virginia and Maryland therefore took the lead in the domestic slave trade, the trading of slaves within the borders of the United States. [25] The average price was $0.58 per pound. Some southerners of the time believed that their regions reliance on a single cash crop and its use of slaves to produce it gave the South economic independence and made it immune from the effects of these changes, but this was far from the truth. Please do not hesitate to contact me. Finally in the 1950s, new mechanical harvesters allowed a handful of workers to pick as much as 100 had done before. By 1860, Georgia alone produced 701,840 bales of cotton, establishing it as the fourth-largest cotton-growing state. January 12, 2023. While the decks carried precious cargo, ornate rooms graced the interior. equivalent bales). One thing, however, was clear cotton was bringing a good price, . He had obtained a patent on the cotton gin but it proved to be unenforceable. to incorporate the statistic into your presentation at any time. An overseer or master measured each individual slaves daily yield. [30] In Japan, especially Texas cotton is very highly regarded as its strong fibers lend themselves perfectly to low tension weaving. Mississippi was, therefore, both a captive of the cotton world and a major player in the 19th century global economy. Farmers first saw the ravaging effect of the weevil, which had spread northward from Mexico, near Corpus Christi during the 1890s. Although the importation of enslaved Africans into the United States had been prohibited in 1808, the temptation of the astronomical profits of the international slave trade was too strong for many New Yorkers. How much a cotton operation could produce depended on how many hands (men women and children) were available. Spindle pickers are used in areas of high rainfall where plants grow tall before they are defoliated. In terms of yield, Missouri yielded a record low of 281 pounds/acre in 1957 and a record high of 1,097 pounds/acre in 2015. Annual production slumped from 1,365,000 bales in the 1910s to 801,000 in the 1920s. The 1889 census reported 3,934,525 acres producing 1.5 million bales. Legumes, both summer and winter, play an important part in building up soil fertility and in making cotton production more profitable. Business Solutions including all features. Although the industry was badly affected by falling prices and pests in the early 1920s, the mechanization of agriculture created additional pressures on those working in the industry. Entire old-growth forests and cypress swamps fell to the axe as slaves labored to strip the vegetation to make way for cotton. The cotton crop in 1900 was more than 3.5 million bales from 7,178,915 acres. Social pressures caused by returning African American WWI veterans demanding increased civil rights being met by a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the violence the Klan inflicted on rural African Americans explains why many African Americans moved to northern American cities in the 1920s through the 1950s during the "Great Migration" as mechanization of agriculture was introduced, leaving many unemployed. Every dollar helps. ", Meikle, Paulette Ann. The White population grew from 5,179 in 1800 to 353,901 in 1860; the enslaved population correspondingly expanded from 3,489 to 436,631. Norman, OK: Not only were the fibers sold, but also the cottonseed was crushed for cooking oil, hulls were converted to cattle feed, and portions of the plant were used to make an early type of plastic. Indeed, the production of cotton brought the South more firmly into the larger American and Atlantic markets. [17] Yet the cotton industry continued to be very important for blacks in the southern United States, much more so than for whites. Cotton and the Growth of the American Economy: 1790-1860. By 1850, of the 3.2 million enslaved people in the country's fifteen slave states, 1.8 million were producing cotton. Auctions of cheap Indian lands as a result of cessions of land by the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations drew bidders from the South and East. [8] This also ushered the slave trade to meet the growing need for labor to grow cotton[citation needed], a labor-intensive crop and a cash crop of immense economic worth[citation needed]. To ambitious white planters, the extent of new land available for cotton production seemed almost limitless, and many planters simply leapfrogged from one area to the next, abandoning their fields every ten to fifteen years after the soil became exhausted. Most New Yorkers did not care that the cotton was produced by enslaved people because for them it became sanitized once it left the plantation. d. 1850-1860 In what decade was there the lowest increase in cotton production? While smuggling continued to occur, the end of the international slave trade meant that domestic slaves were in very high demand. [42] Missouri upland cotton production in 2017 was valued at $261,348,000 with 750,000,480 pound bales produced in that year. Mechanical strippers, which followed, pulled the boll off the plant by means of revolving rollers or brushes. The 1850s were a boom time for cotton factories. This astonishing increase in supply did not cause a long-term decrease in the price of cotton. and In 1868 the combination of nitrocellulose and camphor made celluloid, an artificial plastic. [6], Early cotton production in the United States is linked to the country's history of slavery. 720,000, 2.85 million, 5 million By the civil war how much did cotton account for American exports? Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191500/cotton-production-in-the-us-since-2000/, Cotton production in the U.S. from 2001 to 2022 (in 1,000 bales)*, Immediate access to statistics, forecasts & reports, Total U.S. cotton plantings and harvestings 2001-2022, U.S. acreage of planted cotton 2015/16-2021/22, U.S. acreage of harvested cotton 2015/16-2021/22, U.S. acreage of genetically modified cotton 2014-2019, Cotton production value in the U.S. 2000-2022, Leading U.S. states based on cotton production value 2021, Cottonseed production in the U.S. 2001-2022, U.S. cottonseed production value 2000-2021, Supply of cottonseed products in the U.S. 2016/17-2018/19, U.S. cottonseed oil consumption 2000-2021, Exports of cottonseed from the U.S. 2016/17-2018/19, Exports of cottonseed oil from the U.S. 2016/17-2018/19, Cotton production in China 2021, by region, Share of cotton in China's agricultural acreage 2000-2017, Brazil: harvested area of cotton 2022-2031, Area of sorghum for grain harvested in the U.S. 2001-2022, U.S. plantings and harvestings of oats 2001-2022, U.S. barley plantings and harvestings 2001-2022, Yield per harvested acre of corn for silage in the U.S. 2001-2022, Area of sunflowers planted and harvested 2001-2022, Global cottonseed meal and oil production 2009-2018, Cotton production volume in Egypt 2007-2022, Black winter truffle: volume harvested by production countries in the EU 2012-2016, Truffle distribution in France 2014, by country, Wild harvest area in India from FY 2011-2022, Total area harvested for barley production across the UAE 2014 to 2018, Import value of cotton in Ghana 2010-2019, Production volume of castor oil seeds in India FY 2012-2020, Canada: harvested seeded area of chickpeas 2016/17-2022/23, Import value of cotton into Ethiopia 2015-2021, Find your information in our database containing over 20,000 reports, top producer of cotton in the United States. Nearly forty percent of Britains exports were cotton textiles. Southern capitalists sank money into cotton rather than factories or land. The crop grown in the South was a hybrid: Gossypium barbadense, known as Petit Gulf cotton, a mix of Mexican, Georgia, and Siamese strains. Boston: Little Brown, 1986, Bruchey, Stuart. * 480-pound net weight bales. After a few months, he wrote the now-famous letter to his father in which he described his discovery: I involuntarily happened to be thinking on the subject [of cleaning cotton] and struck out a plan of a Machine [to remove the cotton seed]I concluded to relinquish my school and turn my attention to perfecting the Machine. That machine was the cotton gin. Steamboats, a crucial part of the transportation revolution thanks to their enormous freight-carrying capacity and ability to navigate shallow waterways, became a defining component of the cotton kingdom. A good spacing is about twelve inches between plants, with one or two plants per hill. [43], Missouri grows upland cotton, and cottonseed, which is a valuable livestock feed. Further innovations in the form of genetic engineering and of nanotechnology are an encouraging development for the growth of cotton. New York rose to its preeminent position as the commercial and financial center of America because of cotton. [9] Plantation owners brought mass supplies of labor (slaves) from Africa and the Caribbean to hoe and harvest the crop. It should be grown only on naturally fertile soils or on soils enriched by inoculated and properly fertilized legumes, barnyard manure, or commercial fertilizer. West Texas farmers usually plant a smaller quantity of seed per acre than East Texas growers. In 1849 a census of the cotton production of the state reported 58,073 bales (500 pounds each). More than 99 percent of the cotton grown in the US is of the Upland variety, with the rest being American Pima. In these spaces, whites socialized in the ships saloons and dining halls while black slaves served them (Figure). Although the larger American and Atlantic markets relied on southern cotton in this era, the South depended on these other markets for food, manufactured goods, and loans. American cotton production soared from 156,000 bales in 1800 to more than 4,000,000 bales in 1860 (a bale is a compressed bundle of cotton weighing between 400 and 500 pounds). Cotton, however, emerged as the antebellum Souths major commercial crop, eclipsing tobacco, rice, and sugar in economic importance. In 1793, Eli Whitney revolutionized the production of cotton when he invented the cotton gin, a device that separated the seeds from raw cotton. If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe. It was produced on more than forty percent of the state's improved farmland and provided the basis of the state's economy and the tenancy system. How many bales of cotton did Georgia produce in 1860? Soon after the signing of the Constitution, cotton unexpectedly intervened in the 1790s and changed the course of Americas economic and racial future because of the simultaneous occurrence of two events: the mass production of textiles and the mass production of cotton. Southern black cotton farmers faced discrimination and strikes often broke out by black cotton farmers. This lucrative international trade brought new wealth and new residents to the city. Georgia produced a record 2.8 million bales on 4.9 million acres in 1911. Steamboats also illustrated the class and social distinctions of the antebellum age. per ton equals 4.8 tons. Cotton production totaled about 280,000 bales in 1860 but declined to less than 180,000 bales in 1870. [29] Cotton exports to China grew from a value of $46 million in 2000 to more than $2 billion in 2010. -Uba6rtc34. ", This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 22:50. China imported about 11% of U.S. cotton last year, which was a sharp increase over previous seasons, allowing it to overtake El Salvador, which has consistently imported about 8-9% of the total. As early as 1813, nitrocellulose, or gun cotton, for explosives was made from raw cotton. [28] Four out of the top five importers of U.S.-produced cotton are in North America; the principal destination is Honduras, with about 33% of the total, although this has been in decline slightly over recent years. If the plants are too close together they are thinned when they have four to six leaves. From the time of its gaining statehood in 1817 to 1860, Mississippi became the most dynamic and largest cotton-producing state in America. Cotton planters projected the amount of cotton they could harvest based on the number of slaves under their control. In the antebellum erathat is, in the years before the Civil WarAmerican planters in the South continued to grow Chesapeake tobacco and Carolina rice as they had in the colonial era. . Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-89701. In the eastern part of the state, cotton is planted mostly on medium-high beds to allow better drainage and to enable the soil to warm up quicker in the spring, while in West Texas and other sections with low rainfall, cotton is planted below the level of the land. During the baling process a sample is automatically removed. Answer 2. New York: Russell & Russell, Publishers, 1968, Green, Fletcher Melvin. [23] As a result of the devastating harvest of 1922, some 50,000 black cotton workers left South Carolina, and by the 1930s the state population had declined some 15%, largely due to cotton stagnation. The North Carolina cotton crop began to grow between 1860 with 145,514 bales and 1870 with 203,000 bales (480-lb. ", History of agriculture in the United States, "National Cotton Council of America Rankings", "Ranking of States That Produce the Most Cotton", "Leading destinations of U.S. cotton textile exports", Xiuzhi Wang, Edward A. Evans, and Fredy H. Ballen, "Overview of US Agricultural Trade with China", "USDA/NASS 2020 State Agriculture Overview for South Carolina", "Cotton in a Global Economy: Mississippi (1800-1860)", "Missouri Cotton Facts - Missouri Crop Resource Guide", "Crops - Planted, Harvested, Yield, Production, Price (MYA), Value of Production Sorted by Value of Production in Dollars", Missouri Cotton Facts. By 1850, six mills were in operation in and around Petersburg and they employed approximately 700 female workers. Solomon Northup was a free black man living in Saratoga, New York, when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Because of a shortage of laborers and the destructiveness of sudden storms, cotton growers in the Lubbock area developed a means of rough-harvesting cotton during the 1920s. E. A. Miller, New York City, not just Southern cities, was essential to the cotton world. American cotton made up two-thirds of . In, US Department of Agriculture. [41] In 2017, total Missouri cottonseed sales were 179,000 tons. Then you can access your favorite statistics via the star in the header. The Civil War (1861-65) dramatically changed the state's agricultural labor force by freeing thousands of enslaved laborers, but cotton continued to be the main crop in many parts of Georgia. Beginning in 1872, thousands of immigrants from the Deep South and from Europe poured into the Blackland Prairie of Central Texas and began growing cotton. Cotton was first grown in Texas by Spanish missionaries. Show sources information [1] Almost all of the cotton fiber growth and production occurs in the Southern United States and the Western United States, dominated by Texas, California, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The first half of the nineteenth century saw a market revolution in the United States, one in which industrialization brought changes to both the production and the consumption of goods. Fifty years later, the production of cotton had From 1810 to 1860, the population of enslaved workers In 1884 Robert S. Munger of Mexia revolutionized the slow, animal-powered method of "plantation ginning" by devising the faster, automated "system ginning," the process in use today. The method also broke off bolls, leaves, and sticks and mixed them in the fiber. Cotton production continued its steady increase until the 1920s, Post navigation. Redskins Ruffleshirts and Rednecks: Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830-1860. Once the cotton grower or producer knows the class and value of his cotton, he sells it to buyers around the world by means of computers. [Online]. Directly accessible data for 170 industries from 50 countries and over 1 million facts: Get quick analyses with our professional research service. Cotton cultivation was begun by Anglo-American colonists in 1821. This economic growth exacted a severe and tragic human price through slavery and the prejudicial treatment of free Black people. . The growth of Mississippis population before its admission to statehood and afterwards is distinctly correlated to the rise of cotton production. Cotton farming was also subsidized in the country by the U.S. government[citation needed], as a trade policy, specifically to the "corporate agribusiness" almost ruined the economy of people in many underdeveloped countries such as Mali and many other developing countries (in view of low profits in the light of stiff competition from the United States, the workers could hardly make both ends meet to survive with cotton sales). This astonishing increase in supply did not cause a long-term decrease in the price of cotton. Petit Gulf cotton grew extremely well in different soils and climates. After the seeds had been removed, the cotton was pressed into bales. Mapping History : The Spread of Cotton and of Slavery 1790-1860 - Introduction Introduction This module has four parts. The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry. About 75 percent of the cotton produced in the United States was eventually exported abroad. Cotton and Slavery in the United States, 1790-1860 Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789-1945 Year 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 Cotton Production 1,000 bales 3 73 178 335 732 1,348 2,136 3,841 . As a result, Georgia's cotton economy peaked on the eve of World War I (1917-18). The slaves who built this cotton kingdom with their labor started by clearing the land. How many bales of cotton were produced in 1850? Chart. a dramatic decrease in the price and demand for slaves, the rise of a thriving domestic slave trade, a reform movement calling for the complete end to slavery in the United States. Whitneys priorities, henceforth, were money and manufacturing. Cotton and slavery occupied a centraland intertwinedplace in the nineteenth-century economy. The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur & American Economic Progress. The standard for cotton bales is supposed to be 480 pounds per bale, so twenty bales will weigh 9,600 lbs., divided by 2000 lbs. ", Sven Beckert, "Emancipation and empire: Reconstructing the worldwide web of cotton production in the age of the American Civil War. Georgia had led the world in cotton production during the first boom in the 1820s, with 150,000 bales in 1826; later slumps led to some agricultural diversification. devoting their attention to the production of this staple crop. Every additional three and a half bales meant an additional field-hand, so that in round numbers 1,400,000 more were employed in the cotton-fields in 1860 to produce 5,400,000 bales than to produce the 450,000 bales of 1820.
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