CHAPTER XI.

THE COTTON CROP IN ITS RELATIONS TO AMERICAN COMMERCE.

MUCH misconception has existed in the United States in reference to the question of the production and supply of cotton, and much misrepresentation, in relation to the facts in the case, has been set afloat through the medium of the press. Were we to pass this subject without notice, our investigations would be incomplete. In entering upon its examination, a historical review of the movements of Great Britain will best serve to exhibit the true relations which the American cotton planter has sustained to the cultivation of this commodity throughout the world.

SECTION I. - EARLY MOVEMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN TO RETRIEVE HER LOSSES CONSEQUENT UPON WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION.

The death blow to cotton cultivation in the British West Indies was given by the act abolishing the slave trade. At the beginning of the present century the exports of cotton from these islands nearly equaled that from the United States - the one exporting 17,000,000 lbs., the other 17,780,000 lbs. But upon the suppression of the slave trade, and the consequent diminution of labor in the islands, its cultivation began to decline, so that, by 1834, when the emancipation act went into operation, it had diminished to 2,296,525 lbs. This enormous decline in cotton culture, in the West Indies, was a source of great alarm to British manufacturers. Emancipation was expected to remedy this great misfortune, on the principle that the labor of the negroes, when free, would be much more productive than it had been while they were slaves. This was the British theory of that day, as to the beneficial effects of emancipation; upon this theory Parliament based its act for the abolition of West India slavery; and, as a consequence of this act, the English people confidently anticipated an

enlarged production of all the commodities usually cultivated in the islands.

*

Even as late as 1839 this theory was still held as true, as appears from an address delivered in Boston, by Mr. Scoble, a gentleman who had been secretary of the British and Foreign AntiSlavery Society, which we find noticed in the Christian Watchman of that year. Mr. Scoble had recently visited the West Indies, and professed to speak from actual observation. He represented the prosperity of the islands as on the increase, and this he "accounted for by saying that one free laborer would do more than two slaves."

All this, it is now well understood, was mere bunkum, designed to influence the people of the United States to follow the example of England in abolishing slavery. Esop would have illustrated the designs of Mr. Scoble by his fable of the fox that lost his tail in the trap, and who urged upon a convention of other foxes the great convenience he experienced in having that bushy appendage out of the way.

The year 1839, in which Mr. Scoble came over to instruct us as to the benefits of emancipation, found the West Indies exporting but 928,425 pounds of cotton, and the year 1840 but 427,529 pounds as against 17,000,000 exported in 1800. Cotton cultivation was about at an end in the West Indies. The labor necessary for its production could not be commanded; and, even if it had been in sufficient abundance, prices had so fallen, in consequence of the immense production of the United States, then equaling, for export alone, 743,941,000 pounds that year, (1840,) that attractive wages could not be offered to the newly emancipated blacks.

The American planter had the monopoly of the supply of cotton to the markets of the Christian world; and the West India planter as far as he could command labor, chose to employ it in the production of sugar rather than upon cotton. This left the British manufacturer at the mercy of the slaveholder of the United States for his supplies of that commodity — a position that he chose not to occupy a moment longer than it could be avoided. We find,

*The article is quoted in the Christian Intelligencer, Hamilton, Ohio, October, 1839, page 284.

accordingly, that at the same time that Mr. Scoble was telling the American people about the increasing prosperity of the West Indies, and the greater efficiency of the free negro over the slave, a movement was set on foot, in England, to transfer the seat of cotton cultivation to the East Indies. George Thompson, Esq., the Abolitionist, was placed in the foreground in this movement, and, during 1839, in a course of lectures, undertook to prove that all the elements of successful cotton cultivation existed in India; and that the English people might soon obtain their supplies of cotton from that country, and thus be enabled to repudiate that of the United States. The appeal was made to Parliament to extend a helping hand to cotton culture in the East Indies; and the object to be gained by the measure proposed was the emancipation of the slaves of the United States, by destroying the markets for its cotton. In one of his lectures he thus exclaims:

"The battle-ground of freedom for the world is on the plains of Hindostan. Yes, my friends, do justice to India; wave there the scepter of justice, and the rod of oppression falls from the hands of the slaveholder in America; and the slave, swelling beyond the measure of his chains, stands disenthralled, a free man and an acknowledged brother."*

The introduction to the American edition of the lectures delivered by Mr. Thompson, on that occasion, which was written by William Lloyd Garrison, contains the following sentences. † They sufficiently indicate what were the anticipations of the advocates of the measure:

"If England can raise her own cotton in India, at the paltry rate of a penny a pound, what inducement can she have to obtain her supply from a rival nation, at a rate six or eight times higher? It is stated that the East India free labor costs three pence a day- African slave labor two shillings; that upward of 800,000 bales of cotton are exported from the United States annually to England; and that the cotton trade of the United States with England amounts to the enormous sum of $40,000,000 annually. Let that market be closed to this

* Lectures of George Thompson, Esq., 1839, page 121. Introduction to Thompson's Lectures, page 9.

slaveholding republic, and its slave system must inevitably perish from starvation!"

In pursuance of this policy, cotton-seed from the United States was sent to India, and experienced planters from Mississippi, at high salaries, were employed to superintend its cultivation. But the enterprise was not successful, and the Mississippians, after several years' experimenting, returned home to their own plantations.

The public are fully informed on this subject, so that the history of the enterprise need not be traced at large.

Paragraphs like the following, from time to time, frequently met the eye of the general reader. It is taken from a reliable periodical:

"Late accounts from India, (through the English press,) represent that the attempts of the British capitalists, during the last two or three years, to cultivate cotton in the district of Dharwar, from which much was expected, have signally failed. In 1847-'48, about 20,000 acres were cultivated. It is now ascertained that the crop has rapidly decreased, only 4,000 acres having been under cultivation the past year."

Toward the close of this East India experiment, the London Times, under the head of "Cotton in India," said:

"The one great element of American success.

of American enterprise can never, at least for many generations, be imparted to India. It is impossible to expect of Hindoos all that is achieved by citizens of the States. During the experiments to which we have alluded, an English plow was introduced into one of the provinces, and the natives were taught its use and superiority over their own clumsy machinery. They were at first astonished and delighted at its effects, but as soon as the agent's back was turned, they took it, painted it red, set it up on end and worshiped it."

But this attempt of Great Britain, to secure her supplies of cotton from other sources than the United States, does not stand alone. Seeing, as if by prophetic forecast, that the attempt to cultivate the better qualities of cotton in India would prove a failure, a nearly simultaneous effort was made to extend its culti

vation to Africa. The West Indies, as a field of cotton supply, seemed to be closed forever, as a consequence of emancipation. * It was the expectation of the British that the United States could be made to share the same fate, by the success of abolitionism; and that the monopoly of the American planter being thus destroyed, the price of cotton would necessarily rise, so that it could be grown and exported, at a profit, from more distant fields.

The circumstances which gave rise to the attempt to make Africa a field of cotton production are of very great interest, and must not be overlooked. They may be briefly given in a few extracts:

"The following table, extracted from Parliamentary documents, presents the average number of slaves exported from Africa to America, and sold chiefly in Brazil and Cuba, with the per cent. amount of loss in the periods designated:

"The late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton devoted himself with unwearied industry to the investigation of the extent and enormities of the foreign slave trade. His labors extended through many years, and the results, as published in 1840, sent a thrill of horror throughout the Christian world. He proved conclusively that the victims to the slave trade in Africa amounted annually to 500,000. This included the numbers who perish in the seizure of the victims, in the wars of the natives upon each other, and the deaths during their march to the coast and the detention there before embarkation. This loss he estimates at one-half, or 500 out of every 1,000. The destruction of life during the middle passage he estimates at 25 per cent., or 125 out of the remaining 500 of the original 1,000. The mortality after landing and in seasoning he shows is 20 per cent., or one-fifth of the 375 sur

The coolie traffic was not then begun, and no means existed, apparently, for restoring the islands to their former productiveness.