| Exports of U. S., Millions of Dollars | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1802-4 | 1860 | |
| Vegetable foods | 13 | 27 |
| Cotton | 6 | 191 |
| Tobacco | 6 | 15 |
| Animal products | 3 | 20 |
| Fish products | 2 | 4 |
| Forest products | 4 | 13 |
| Manufactures | 2 | 37 |
| Total of these items, omitting decimals | 36 | 307 |
| Total domestic exports including items omitted | 39 | 316 |
| Total foreign exports | 28 | 26 |
| Exports of precious metals | 56 | |
634. Changes since 1800.—It will be noted, as said above, that the foreign exports of the country did not increase during the period, and were actually less in 1860 than they were about 1800. Comparing the figures for the total exports of domestic merchandise we find that this, the most important branch of our commerce, increased about eightfold in value between the years chosen for comparison. All of the separate classes of wares contributed to the growth of our export trade, but in very different measure, as is apparent when the figures are compared. The export industries which were most prominent in the colonial and early national periods had not kept their place in the movement of progress, and their output for export had merely doubled, roughly, in this period. There is apparent, on the other hand, a great growth in the export of manufactured wares; and the export of cotton, which in 1789 was practically nothing, and about 1800 was less than seven million, had risen to the enormous sum of one hundred and ninety million, considerably more than half in value of the total exports of the country. The history of commerce presents no parallel to the rapid rise of cotton in the commerce of the United States at this period, and the subject demands careful consideration.
635. Cotton before 1800.—The word cotton, now applied exclusively to the fibers attached to the seed of a shrub of the mallow family, was formerly a general term used for vegetable fibers coming from several different sources. The fibers acquired from the present cotton shrub, or from a vine or tree, had been used for textile fabrics from ancient times. The manufacture of cotton goods, however, was neglected in Europe until the eighteenth century, and at the beginning of our national existence much of the supply of raw cotton still came from the ancient seat of the cotton industry in Asia. From almost the beginning of the colonial period in American history experiments had been made with cotton culture, but the colonists found no incentive to devote themselves to cotton cultivation on a large scale. The separation of the fiber from the seeds was a tedious process, there was no market for raw cotton in the colonies, and other crops were found to return larger profits to the cultivator. Cotton was grown successfully on some of the islands of semi-tropical America, but the territory now forming the United States counted for nothing as a source of cotton when the national government was established in 1789. So weak, in fact, was the cotton industry at this time, that it was protected by a duty of three cents a pound on imported cotton, included in the first national tariff.
636. Growth in importance of cotton.—Various influences, however, combined about 1789 to bring into prominence the possibilities of cotton as a regular crop. The great improvements in textile machinery caused at this time an increased demand for the raw material. The other crops which were then raised in the territory now occupied by cotton were not flourishing. The indigo culture, for reasons which have been noted above, was unpopular; rice culture had declined during the Revolution, as the war had broken up the organization of slave labor in the rice districts; tobacco was giving smaller returns, as the land was exhausted by continuous cropping. A new variety of cotton, moreover, had recently been introduced from the Bahamas, known as sea-island or long-staple; the fibers were long and silky, suited to the manufacture of fine threads and fabrics, and they were more readily separated from the seeds than were the fibers of the ordinary short-staple or upland variety. The cultivation of this variety was an assured success in the narrow strip along the coast where it could be grown; and further inland, where sea-island cotton could not be raised, people began to strive persistently to overcome the difficulties of the cultivation of the upland variety.
637. Demand for efficient means of cleaning cotton.—The chief obstacle to the cultivation of upland cotton was now the difficulty of separating the fibers from the seeds. To perform the process by hand-picking was out of the question, as a man in this way could clean only one pound of cotton in a day. Various simple machines had been devised to effect the separation of the seeds, and these were fairly successful when applied to sea-island cotton, enabling a man to clean fifty or sixty pounds. None of them, however, was a success when applied to upland cotton, whose short fibers adhered very tenaciously to the seeds.
The problem was solved by a native of New England, Eli Whitney, who had gone south as a teacher, and who invented the cotton gin (engine) which proved capable of cleaning upland cotton, and so made the cultivation of that crop a commercial possibility. The conditions may be described in Whitney’s own words, used in a memorial to the government, asking for an extension of his patent. He showed “That, being in the state of Georgia in the year 1793, he was informed by the planters that the agriculture of that State was unproductive, especially in the interior, where it produced little or nothing for exportation. That attempts had been made to cultivate cotton, but that the prospect of success was not flattering. That of the various kinds which had been tried in the interior none of them were productive, except the green seed cotton, which was so extremely difficult to clean as to discourage all further attempts to raise it. That it was generally believed this species of cotton might be cultivated with great advantage, if any cheap and expeditious method of separating it from its seeds could be discovered, and that such a discovery would be highly beneficial both to the public and the inventor.”
638. Invention of the saw gin by Whitney, 1793.—Encouraged by the terms of the national patent law, on which he relied for a monopoly of his invention, Whitney set to work, and in a short time had devised a form of cotton-gin which, with minor alterations, has remained in use ever since. The raw cotton was fed through a wire grating to a cylinder on the surface of which were wires or saw teeth, that caught the fibers and pulled them through, the seeds being retained by the grating. The gin was a complete success, enabling a man to clean several hundred pounds of cotton in a day. Whitney himself reaped comparatively little benefit from his invention, as he found it impossible to prevent infringements; he said in 1812, with slight exaggeration, that the total amount which he had realized was less than the saving in cost effected in one hour by his machines then in operation. The country, however, was an immense gainer, for the last obstacle to the successful cultivation of cotton was removed.
639. Extension of cotton cultivation, and increase of exports.—The exports of cotton, which in 1793, the year of Whitney’s invention, had been only two thousand bales, rose by leaps and bounds. In 1802 they passed one hundred thousand bales, in 1822 five hundred thousand, in 1834 one million, in 1843 two million, in 1858 three million. The States along the Atlantic coast, in which cotton culture first sprang up, continued for many years to be the main seat of the industry. After the war of 1812, however, the cultivation of cotton spread in the Southwest, where rich river bottoms and prairie lands offered soil of exceptional fertility, and where the numerous rivers facilitated transportation. The exports of cotton from New Orleans increased tenfold in the years 1816 to 1830, and at this later date the western States produced the larger part of the cotton supply. At the close of the period which we are studying (1860) over half of the total crop was raised in the three States Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
640. King cotton.—The success of the cotton culture in this country was attended by far-reaching results in economic and political history. We must restrict ourselves here to the commercial aspects of the cotton industry, without discussing such topics as its relations to slavery and its influence in bringing on the Civil War.
Never in the world’s history have producers enjoyed such an exalted position in commerce as that which was held by the planters of the cotton States. The larger part of the world’s supply of an article regarded as of the first necessity came from a comparatively restricted area in the South. The people of Europe and other continents had become used to cotton textiles, great factories had grown up to manufacture them, but it seemed as though people must go unclad and factories must stop work, if the United States should refuse to deliver raw cotton. For years before the Civil War fear of a cotton famine had haunted the minds of European manufacturers.