Perception of Cotton Industry in the Early United States

The quality of the cotton grown was highly satisfactory; the quality of the finished cloth produced was not.

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.

In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, in a letter, says: “The four southernmost States make a great deal of cotton. Their poor are almost entirely clothed with it in winter and summer. In winter they wear shirts of it and outer clothing of cotton and wool mixed. In summer their shirts are linen, but the outer clothing cotton. The dress of the women is almost entirely of cotton, manufactured by themselves, except the richer class, and even many of these wear a great deal of homespun cotton. It is as well manufactured as the calicoes of Europe.”

At the convention at Annapolis in 1786 James Madison expressed the conviction that from the experience already had “from the garden practice in Talbot County, Maryland, and the circumstances of the same kind abounding in Virginia, there was no reason to doubt that the United States would one day become a great cotton-producing country.” This year Sea Island cotton-seed was introduced into Georgia, the seed being sent from the Bahama Islands to Governor Tatnall, William Spaulding, Richard Leake, and Alexander Pisset, of that State. The cotton adapted itself to the climate, and every successive year from 1787 saw long-staple cotton extending itself along the shores of South Carolina and Georgia.

According to Thomas Spaulding, the first planter who attempted cotton culture on a large scale was Richard Leake, of Savannah, but the editor of Niles Register (1824) says that Nichol Turnbull, a native of Smyrna, was the first planter who cultivated cotton upon a scale for exportation. His residence was at Deptford Hall, three miles from Savannah, where he died in 1824.

In a letter dated Savannah, December 11, 1788, to Colonel Thomas Proctor, of Philadelphia, Leake says: “I have been this year an adventurer — and the first that has attempted it on a large scale — in introducing a new staple for the planting interests — the article of cotton — samples of which I beg leave now to send you and request you will lay them before the Philadelphia Society for Encouraging Manufactures, that the quality may be inspected. Several here, as well as in North Carolina, have followed me and tried the experiment, and it is likely to answer our most sanguine expectations. I shall raise about five thousand pounds in the seed from eight acres of land, and next year I intend to plant about fifty to one hundred acres if suitable encouragement is given. The principal difficulty that arises to us is the cleansing it from the seed, which I am told they do with great dexterity and ease in Philadelphia with gins or machines made for the purpose. I am told they make those that will clean thirty to forty pounds clean cotton in a day and upon very simple construction.”

The first attempt in South Carolina to produce Sea Island cotton was made in 1788 by Mrs. Kinsey Burden at Burden’s Island. As early as 1779 the short staple was produced by her husband, whose negroes were clothed in homespun cotton cloth. Mrs. Burden’s efforts failed. The plants did not mature, and this was attributed to the seed, which was of the Bourbon variety. The first successful variety appears to have been grown by William Elliot on Hilton Head, near Beaufort, in 1790, with five and one-half bushels of seed, which he bought in Charleston and for which he paid fourteen shillings a bushel. He sold his crop for ten and one-half pence a pound.

In 1791 John Scriven, of St. Luke’s Parish, planted thirty to forty acres on St. Mary’s River. He sold it for from one shilling twopence to one shilling sixpence per pound. It is certain that at this period many planters on the Sea Islands and contiguous mainland experimented with long-staple cotton, and probably it was produced by them for market.

One of the earliest reports of export of cotton from the colonies is a bill of lading which certifies that on July 20, 1751, Henry Hansen shipped, “in good order and well conditioned, in and upon the good snow called the Mary, whereof is master under God, for this present voyage, Barnaby Badgers, and now riding in the harbor of New York, and by God’s grace bound for London — to say — eighteen bales of cotton-wool, being marked and numbered as in the margin, and are to be delivered in like good order and conditioned, at the aforesaid port of London — the danger of the sea only excepted — unto Messrs. Horke and Champior or their assigns, he or they paying freight for the said goods, three farthings per pound, primage and average accustomed.”

The feeling regarding the culture and manufacture of cotton in the colonies at this period may be gathered from the following extract from a letter of July 7, 1749, addressed by the Georgia office of London to the Governor of Georgia: “You say, sir, likewise in your letter, that the people of Vernonburgh and Acton are giving visible appearance of revising their industry; that they are propagating large quantities of flax and cotton, and that they are provided with weavers, who have already wove several large pieces of cloth of a useful sort, whereof they sold divers, and some they made use of in their own families. The account of their industry is highly satisfactory to the trustees; but as to manufacturing the produces they raise, they must expect no encouragement from the trustees, for setting up manufactures which may interfere with those of England might occasion complaints here, for which reason you must, as they will, discountenance them; and it is necessary for you to direct the industry of these people into a way which might be more beneficial to themselves and would prove satisfactory to the trustees and the public; that is, to show them what advantages they will reap from the produce of silk, which they will receive immediate pay for, and that this will not interfere with or prevent their raising flax or cotton, or any other produces for exportation, unmanufactured.”

A pamphlet entitled A Description of South Carolina states that cotton was imported to Carolina from the West Indies, and it is probable that the early shipments from this country were of this West Indian cotton, although English writers mentioned it as an import of Carolina cotton.

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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