Cotton Growing in Colonial America

The first culture of cotton in the United States deserves commemoration.

Continuing Enormous Growth of Cotton in America,
with a selection from The Cotton Plant (a Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, Volume 33) by Robert B. Handy published in 1896. This selection is presented in 5 installments, each one 5 minutes long. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Enormous Growth of Cotton in America.

According to Bancroft, the first experiment in cotton culture in the colonies was made in Virginia during Wyatt’s administration of the government. Writing of that period he says: “The first culture of cotton in the United States deserves commemoration. In this year (1621) the seeds were planted as an experiment, and their ‘plentiful coming up’ was at that early day a subject of interest in America and England.”

Cotton-wool was listed in that year at eightpence a pound, which shows that it may have been grown earlier, for it is scarcely possible that it could have been grown, cleaned, and received in market in the same year. Seabrook states that the “green-seed,” or upland, variety was certainly grown in Virginia to a limited extent at least one hundred thirty years before the Revolution. Some of the early governors of that colony were especially energetic in their efforts to encourage its cultivation. Among these were Sir William Berkeley; Francis Morrison, his deputy, and Sir Edmund Andros. The latter, says one authority, “gave particular marks of his favor toward the propagation of cotton, which since his time has been much neglected.”

The exports of the Virginia colony during the first thirty years of its existence were confined almost exclusively to tobacco, but there is evidence that in the latter half of the seventeenth century cotton was cultivated and manufactured among the planters for domestic consumption. Burk states that “after the Restoration (1660) their attention was strongly attracted to home manufactures as well by the necessities of their position as by the encouragement of the assembly and the bounty offered by the King. But the zeal displayed in the outset for these products gradually cooled, and if we except the manufacture of coarse cloths and unpainted cotton, nothing remained of the sounding list prepared with so much labor by the King and recommended by legislation, premium, and royal bounty.”

Among the earliest historical references to cotton in this country is that contained in A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina, on the Coasts of Florida, and More Particularly of a New Plantation Begun by the English at Cape Feare, on that River, now by them called Georges River, published in London in 1666. The author of this tract, whose name is not given, says: “In the midst of this fertile province, in the latitude of 34°, there is a colony of English seated, who landed there May 29, 1664.” After giving an account of the fertility of the soil and its natural products, he adds: “But they have brought with them most sorts of seeds and roots of the Barbados, which thrive in this most temperate clime. They have indigo, very good tobacco, and cotton-wool.” Robert Home mentions cotton among the products of South Carolina in 1666. In Samuel Wilson’s Account of the Province of Carolina in America, addressed to the Earl of Craven, and published in London in 1682, it is stated that “cotton of the Cyprus and Smyrna sort grows well, and good plenty of the seed is sent thither,” and among the instructions given by the proprietors of South Carolina to Mr. West, the first governor, is the following: “You are then to furnish yourself with cotton-seed, indigo, and ginger-roots.” He was also instructed to receive the products of the country in payment of rents at certain fixed valuations, among which cotton was priced at three and one-half pence per pound.

In 1697, in a memoir addressed to Count de Pontchartrain on the importance of establishing a colony in Louisiana, the author, after describing the natural productions of the country, says: “Such are some of the advantages which may be reasonably expected, without counting those resulting from every day’s experience. We might, for example, try the experiment of cultivating long-staple cotton.” The presumption is that the short-staple variety had already been tried. In the very beginning of the eighteenth century cotton culture in North Carolina had reached the extent of furnishing one-fifth of the people with their clothing. Lawson, speaking of the prosperity of the country and commending the industry of the women, says: “We have not only provision plentiful, but clothes of our own manufacture, which are made and daily increase; cotton, wool, and flax being of our own growth; and the women are to be highly commended for industry in spinning and ordering their housewifery to so great an advantage as they do.”

About this time cotton became widely distributed and cotton-patches were common in Carolina. In fact, it is said to have been one of the principal commodities of Carolina as early as 1708, but its culture was only for domestic uses, and the same authority speaks of its being spun by the women.

Charlevoix, in 1722, while on his voyage down the Mississippi, saw “very fine cotton on the tree” growing in the garden of Sieur le Noir; and Captain Roman, of the British Army, saw in East Mississippi black-seeded cotton growing on the farm of Mr. Krebs, and also a machine invented by Mr. Krebs for the separation of the seed and lint. This was a roller-gin, and possibly the first ever in operation in this country.

Pickett says that in 1728 the colony of Louisiana, which at that date occupied nearly all the southwest part of the United States, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, was in a flourishing condition, its fields being cultivated, by more than two thousand slaves, in cotton, indigo, tobacco, and grain.

Peter Purry, the founder of Purryville, in South Carolina, in his description of the Province of South Carolina, drawn up in Charleston in 1731, says, “Flax and cotton thrive admirably.”

In 1734 cotton-seed was planted in Georgia, being sent there by Philip Nutter, of Chelsea, England. Francis Moore, who visited Savannah in 1735, in his description of that place, says: “At the bottom of the hill, well sheltered from the north wind and in the warmest part of the garden, there was a collection of West Indian plants and trees, some coffee, some cocoa-nuts, cotton, etc.”

Charles W. Dabney begins here. Robert B. Handy begins here. Denison Olmsted begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

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