THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Cotton

Lisa Karen Miller

          On December 22, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman wired President Abraham Lincoln this message: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

          Quite a gift.

          The Confederacy had placed an embargo on cotton, hence the stockpile in Savannah. They thought that if their European trading partners – chief among them Great Britain – were deprived of it for a while, they would lend their support and recognition to the confederate states. 

          Britain used American cotton in her numerous mills, but became wary of continuing to support a commodity fueled by slavery. She also understood the importance of maintaining a friendly trading relationship with the Union.

          Instead of capitulating to Southern pressure, Britain found suppliers elsewhere, and the cotton industry began to thrive in Egypt, India, and the East Indies.

          Working conditions, unfortunately, weren’t much better.

          Cotton is labor intensive, requiring many hands to pick it in a limited time. No matter where it is grown, the human beings in the field work terribly hard for little pay.

          No one knows exactly how old cotton is. Scientists have found, in Mexican caves, cotton bolls and cloth that are at least 7,000 years old.   It was being grown, spun, and woven into cloth in Pakistan in 3,000 B.C.E. When Columbus arrived, he noticed it growing in the Bahamas. By 1500, it was known worldwide.

          Eli Whitney is remembered for inventing the cotton gin, a machine that removes the seeds from cotton, a previously labor-intensive manual process.  The machine had a wooden drum with hooks that pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh; the seeds would not fit through it and fell outside.

The story goes that he was inspired to create this design by watching a cat try to pull a chicken through a fence with its hook-like claws.  It only succeeded in pulling off some of the feathers.

          That’s an inventor for you: most people would have shooed away the cat.  Like many tinkerers, Whitney was a keen observer of nature and always tried to learn from it.

          The gin (short for engine) invigorated the cotton market worldwide, and cotton became the United States’ chief export; it represented half the value of U.S. exports between 1820 and 1860.  Tragically, his invention also prolonged slavery and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.

          This Black History Month, let’s remember all those who worked for generations to provide the clothes on our backs.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller