How Did Cotton Influence The Economy

The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a site of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchant and statesmen, farmers and merchants, workers and factory owners. Cotton was the world’s most important manufacturing industry. Though it now has surpassed by other industries, cotton remains important in terms of employment and global trade. The movement of capital, people, goods, and raw materials around the globe and the connection forged between distant areas of the world are at the very core of the grand transformation. Cotton factories towered above all other forms of European and North American manufacturing. Cotton growing dominated the U.S. economy throughout much of the nineteenth century. Cotton also was the cradle of industrialization in virtually every other part of the world. Cotton created a large industrial proletariats in Europe, and also created new manufacturing enterprises. The world’s cotton industry expanded primarily
Slavery, colonial domination, militarized trade, and land expropriations provided the fertile soil from which a new kind capitalism would sprout. Cotton manufacturing on a small scale was astonishingly profitable in 1780s and 1790s. As demand for raw cotton rose, so too did prices. In 1781, prices for cotton in Britain were two and three higher than they had a decade earlier. The emerging cotton complex centered in Europe was also unique because it did not draw on the production of nearby peasants for its raw materials. Most of the cotton grown for manufacturing purposes around the world was produced by small farmers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and consumed locally in 1791.High profits from production in turn made manufacturing an ever more attractive field for further