Cotton

:For information on the cotton plant, see cotton plant.

History

Cotton has been used to make very fine lightweight cloth in areas with tropical climates for millennia. Some authorities claim that it was likely that the Egyptians had cotton as early as 12,000 BC, and evidence has been found of cotton in Mexican caves (cotton cloth and fragments of fibre interwoven with feathers and fur) which dated back to approximately 7,000 years ago. There is clear archaeological evidence that people in South America and India domesticated different species of cotton independently thousands of years ago.

Related Topics:
Cloth - Egypt - Mexican - Feather - Fur

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The earliest written reference to cotton is in India. Cotton has been grown in India for more than three thousand years, and it is referred to in the Rig-Veda, written in 1500 BC. A thousand years later the great Greek historian Herodotus wrote about Indian cotton: "There are trees which grow wild there, the fruit of which is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The Indians make their clothes of this tree wool". (Book iii. 106)

Related Topics:
India - Rig-Veda - Greek - Herodotus - Wool - Sheep

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During the late mediaeval period, cotton became known as an imported fibre in northern Europe, without any knowledge of what it came from other than that it was a plant; people in the region, familiar only with animal fibres (wool from sheep), could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the now-preposterous belief: "There grew there India a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie.". This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many European languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as "tree wool".

Related Topics:
Mediaeval - Import - Europe - Plant - Animal - Wool - Sheep - John Mandeville - 1350 - German

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By the end of the 16th century AD, cotton was cultivated throughout the warmer regions in Africa, Eurasia and the Americas.

Related Topics:
Africa - Eurasia - The Americas

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The Indian cotton processing industry was eclipsed during the British Industrial Revolution, when the invention of the Spinning Jenny (1764) and Arkwright's spinning frame (1769) enabled cheap mass-production of cotton cloth in the UK. Production capacity was further improved by the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793.

Related Topics:
British - Industrial Revolution - Spinning Jenny - 1764 - Spinning frame - 1769 - UK - Cotton gin - Eli Whitney - 1793

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In the United States, growing the three crops, cotton, indigo and tobacco historically were the leading occupations of slaves. After emancipation, the share cropping system evolved which in many cases differed little from the systems of slavery.

Related Topics:
United States - Indigo - Tobacco - Slave - Emancipation - Share cropping

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