After the war, when steel and rubber became available to manufacturers again, farmers began to mechanize their methods of planting, cultivating, and harvesting, thus eliminating the need for tenants and sharecroppers, many of whom did not return to farmwork, and leading to new practices in cotton production that remain in use today. Business Solutions including all features. The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry. 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. [37], From 1817, when it became a state, to 1860 Mississippi was the largest cotton-producing state in the United States. 11.3: Cotton and Slavery - Humanities LibreTexts [32] With eight production regions around Texas, and only four geographic regions, it is the state's leading cash crop. 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. By 1860, slave labor was producing over two billion pounds of cotton per year. In 1879 some 2,178,435 acres produced 805,284 bales. U.S. trade increased with France and Spain. Over the next several months, from April to August, they carefully tended the plants. The spindles add moisture to the locks to make them cling to the barbs, and rubber doffers loosen the cotton, which is then blown into a steel basket. [43], Missouri grows upland cotton, and cottonseed, which is a valuable livestock feed. Horses or mules pulled the sled through the fields to harvest the cotton. Study guide Flashcards | Quizlet ", Sven Beckert, "Emancipation and empire: Reconstructing the worldwide web of cotton production in the age of the American Civil War. Eugene R. Dattel, a Mississippi native and economic historian, is a former international investment banker. (January 12, 2023). "Cotton Mill City: The Huntsville Textile Industry, 1880-1989. Some southerners believed that their regions monopoly over the lucrative cotton cropon which both the larger American and Atlantic markets dependedand their possession of a slave labor force allowed the South to remain independent from the market revolution. Cotton farming was one of the major areas of racial tension in its history, where many whites expressed concerns about the mass employment of blacks in the industry and the dramatic growth of black landowners. about how many millions of bales of cotton were produced in the south Because of British demand, cotton was vital to the American economy. By 1911, however, production reached its peak at 1.6 million bales. The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur & American Economic Progress. 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. [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. In 1852 Texas was in eighth place among the top ten cotton-producing states of the nation. Right: Unloading freshly harvested cotton using a mechanical, Left: Cotton farming in Mississippi using, Joyce E. Chaplin, "Creating a Cotton South in Georgia and South Carolina, 1760-1815. The module is covered with a polyethelene tarpaulin and marked for field identification with a harmless spray. Mississippi was, therefore, both a captive of the cotton world and a major player in the 19th century global economy. Every penny counts! How much a cotton operation could produce depended on how many hands (men women and children) were available. Cotton should be harvested as early as possible because profits are often greatly reduced by allowing the open cotton to be exposed to the wind and rain. If the plants are too close together they are thinned when they have four to six leaves. Those who sold their slaves could realize great profits, as could the slave brokers who served as middlemen between sellers and buyers. 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. Only Mississippi (1,195,699 bales), Alabama (997,978 bales) and Louisiana (722,218 bales) produced more cotton. The Cotton Economy in the South | Encyclopedia.com Sadly for Whitney, the cotton gin generated no profits because other manufacturers copied his design without paying him fees. PDF TT 25 The Americans Test Practice Transparency CHART Data Chart Some of the newcomers bought small farmsteads, but most worked as tenant farmers or sharecroppers for landowners who controlled spreads as large as 6,000 acres. Whitneys priorities, henceforth, were money and manufacturing. Economics When war broke out, the Confederates refused to allow the export of cotton to Europe. Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853 (the basis of a 2013 Academy Awardwinning film). Cotton requires fertile soil for profitable yields. Another type of harvester is the spindle picker. About how many millions of bales of cotton were produced in the south Mississippi and its neighbors Alabama, western Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas provided the cheap land that was suitable for cotton production. The Souths dependence on cotton was matched by its dependence on slaves to harvest the cotton. Cotton in a Global Economy: Mississippi (1800-1860) - 2006-10 Some slaveholders responded to this situation by freeing slaves; far more decided to sell their excess bondsmen. "[16] However, discrimination towards blacks continued as it did in the rest of society, and isolated incidents often broke out. In both cases tenants and sharecroppers, whether White or Black, bought such goods as shoes, medicines, and staple food items from the landowners' commissaries, and the landowners kept the accounts. The most notable change in the production of cotton in the twentieth century was the geographical shift from East and Central Texas to the High Plains and the Rio Grande valley. All told, the movement of slaves in the South made up one of the largest forced internal migrations in the United States. Southern planters also borrowed money from banks in northern cities, and in the southern summers, took advantage of the developments in transportation to travel to resorts at Saratoga, New York; Litchfield, Connecticut; and Newport, Rhode Island. New Orleans, the hub of commerce, boasted the largest slave market in the United States and grew to become the nations fourth-largest city as a result. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-89701. The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860. US Department of Agriculture. Missouri soil allows for the growth of upland cotton with the average bale weighing approximately five hundred pounds. 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. [citation needed]. As soon as this statistic is updated, you will immediately be notified via e-mail. By the early 1900s, the botanist Thomas Henry Kearney (18741956) created a long staple cotton which was named Pima after the Indians who grew it. [7], Native Americans were observed growing cotton by the Coronado expedition in the early 1540s. New York's poor Black population was effectively disfranchised. 2,250,000 Which decade experienced the greatest increase in the number of slaves? krispyKyle krispyKyle 05/01/2017 History College answered About how many millions of bales of cotton were produced in the south in 1860 See answers Advertisement Advertisement swalla swalla 4,000,000 or four million . Why did some southerners believe their region was immune to the effects of the market revolution? In general, planters expected a good hand, or slave, to work ten acres of land and pick two hundred pounds of cotton a day. An abolitionist print shows a group of slaves in chains being sold by a trader on horseback to another dealer. Cottonseed production was less valuable that year in terms of dollar value, with a total production being 255,000 tons valued at $39,824,000 ($152/ton). We need your support because we are a non-profit organization that relies upon contributions from our community in order to record and preserve the history of our state. Currently, you are using a shared account. The first displays the dramatic growth of cotton production in the United States from 1790 to 1860. The cotton gin. By 1850, six mills were in operation in and around Petersburg and they employed approximately 700 female workers. Petit Gulf cotton grew extremely well in different soils and climates. 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. 5 million. 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. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/cotton-culture. This economic growth exacted a severe and tragic human price through slavery and the prejudicial treatment of free Black people. Sometimes the cotton was dried before it was ginned (put through the process of separating the seeds from the cotton fiber). The second displays the spread of slavery during those same decades. equivalent bales). There was little . Technology and a world demand for cotton products, however, could not offset the devastation of the boll weevil. Mapping History : The Spread of Cotton and of Slavery 1790-1860 - Introduction Introduction This module has four parts. Finally in the 1950s, new mechanical harvesters allowed a handful of workers to pick as much as 100 had done before. Statista. Some of the inexpensive clothing, called slops, and shoes worn by slaves were manufactured in the North. 1800-1810 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. 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. Please create an employee account to be able to mark statistics as favorites. Nevertheless, Georgians raised 500,000 bales in 1850, second only to Alabama, and nearly 702,000 bales in 1860, behind Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Cotton and tobacco prices collapsed in 1920 following overproduction and the boll weevil pest wiped out the sea island cotton crop in 1921. The slaves day didnt end after they picked the cotton; once they had brought it to the gin house to be weighed, they then had to care for the animals and perform other chores. The improvements allowed cotton fabrics to be mass produced and, therefore, affordable to millions of people. Some western states, such as Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, tried to exclude African Americans at the same time they were aggressively recruiting millions of White European immigrants. By 1850, of the 3.2 million slaves in the country's fifteen slave states, 1.8 million were producing cotton; by 1860, slave labor was producing over two billion pounds of cotton per year. U.S. History, Cotton is King: The Antebellum South, 1800-1860, The Cotton production in the U.S. from 2001 to 2022 (in 1,000 bales)* [Graph]. After the seeds had been removed, the cotton was pressed into bales. The cotton crop in 1900 was more than 3.5 million bales from 7,178,915 acres. The Economics of Cotton | US History I (OS Collection) The next most important importer is Mexico, with about 18%, a figure which has been broadly stable, and then the Dominican Republic, although exports have declined as a proportion of the total in recent years. New Orleans had been part of the French empire before the United States purchased it, along with the rest of the Louisiana Territory, in 1803. a. Between 1860 and 1870, Brazilian annual cotton exports rose 400%, from 12,000 to 60,000 tonnes. Cotton | South Carolina Encyclopedia Tenants lived in houses on the landowners' property and supplied their own draft animals, tools, and seed; for their year of work, after the cotton was ginned, they received two-thirds of the value of the cotton. Nearly 4,000,000 of Britains total population of 21,000,000 were dependent on cotton textile manufacturing. Agents of the United States Department of Agriculture and the county extension service, which was begun at Texas A&M College, set up demonstration farms and experiment stations and visited individual farms to show farmers how to improve their crops through better methods of cultivation. Learn more about how Statista can support your business. [22], The cotton industry in the United States hit a crisis in the early 1920s. On September 25, 1961, Herbert Lee, a black cotton farmer and voter-registration organizer, was shot in the head and killed by white state legislator E. H. Hurst in Liberty, Mississippi. As early as 1813, nitrocellulose, or gun cotton, for explosives was made from raw cotton. 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. Indeed, slaves often maintained their own gardens and livestock, which they tended after working the cotton fields, in order to supplement their supply of food. [17] Yet the cotton industry continued to be very important for blacks in the southern United States, much more so than for whites. The English Empire, 16601763, Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774, America's War for Independence, 1775-1783, Creating Republican Governments, 17761790, Growing Pains: The New Republic, 17901820, Industrial Transformation in the North, 18001850, A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 18001860, Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 18201860, Go West Young Man! The California cotton industry provides more than 20,000 jobs in the state and generates revenues in excess of $3.5 billion annually. Only Mississippi (1,195,699 bales), Alabama (997,978 bales) and Louisiana (722,218 bales) produced more cotton. American cotton made up two-thirds of . Other combined counties in Missouri produced 15,800 bales in 2016. "Globalization and Its Effects on Agriculture and Agribusiness in the Mississippi Delta: A Historical Overview and Prospects for the Future. After the seeds had been removed, the cotton was pressed into bales. Print from The Illustrated London News courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-64405. When the international slave trade was outlawed in 1808, the domestic slave trade exploded, providing economic opportunities for whites involved in many aspects of the trade and increasing the possibility of slaves dislocation and separation from kin and friends. Slow work pace, pilfer in-house goods, sabotaged crop production, and damaged tools. Exporting at such high volumes made the United States the undisputed world leader in cotton production. The seed are planted from one to two inches deep, the depth depending upon the condition of the soil and the amount of moisture present at planting time.