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Cotton

Today’s world textile and garment trade is valued at a staggering 425 billiondollars. We are told that under the pressure of increasing globalisation, it is Indiaand China that are the new world-manufacturing powerhouses. However, this isnot a new phenomenon: until the industrial revolution, Asia manufactured greatquantities of colourful printed cottons that were sold to places as far afield asJapan, West Africa and Europe. Cotton explores this earlier globalised economyand its transformation after 1750 as cotton led the way in the industrialisation ofEurope. By the early nineteenth century, India, China and the Ottoman Empireswitched from world producers to buyers of European cotton textiles, a positionthat they retained for over two hundred years. This is a fascinating and insightfulstory which ranges from Asian and European technologies and African slavery tocotton plantations in the Americas and consumer desires across the globe.

giorgio riello is Professor of Global History at the University of Warwick anda member of Warwick’s Global History and Culture Centre. He is the author of AFoot in the Past (2006) and has co-edited several books, including The SpinningWorld (2009), How India Clothed the World (2009) and Global Design History(2011). In 2010 he was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize.

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-16670-6 - Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern WorldGiorgio RielloFrontmatterMore information

http://www.cambridge.org/9780521166706

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COTTONThe Fabric that Made the Modern World

GIORGIO RIELLO






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C© Giorgio Riello 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

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no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2013

Reprinted 2013

Paperback edition first published 2015

Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Riello, Giorgio.

Cotton : the fabric that made the modern world / Giorgio Riello.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-1-107-00022-3 (hardback)

1. Cotton textile industry – History. 2. Cotton trade – History.

3. Cotton – History. I. Title.

hd9870.5.r54 2013

338.4′767721 – dc23 2012034005

isbn 978-1-107-00022-3 Hardback

isbn 978-0-521-16670-6 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,

and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,

accurate or appropriate.






CONTENTS

List of figures and colour plates viiList of maps xxiList of tables xxiiPreface xxivAbbreviations xxviii

1 Introduction: global cotton and global history 1

Part I The first cotton revolution: a centrifugal system,circa 1000–1500

2 Selling to the world: India and the old cotton system 17

3 ‘Wool growing on wild trees’: the global reach of cotton 37

4 The world’s best: cotton manufacturing and the advantage ofIndia 59

Part II Learning and connecting: making cottons global,circa 1500–1750

5 The Indian apprenticeship: Europeans trading in Indian cottons 87

6 New consuming habits: how cottons entered European housesand wardrobes 110

7 From Asia to America: cottons in the Atlantic world 135

8 Learning and substituting: printing cotton textiles in Europe 160






vi / Contents

Part III The second cotton revolution: a centripetal system,circa 1750–2000

9 Cotton, slavery and plantations in the New World 187

10 Competing with India: cotton and European industrialisation 211

11 ‘The wolf in sheep’s clothing’: the potential of cotton 238

12 Global outcomes: the West and the new cotton system 264

13 Conclusion: from system to system; from divergence toconvergence 288

Notes 296Select bibliography 371Index 395






FIGURES AND COLOUR PLATES

The following list of figures also indicates those illustrations that are reproducedin colour. Colour plates are located between pages 228 and 229.

1.1 Comparative GDP per capita in China and Western Europe,1400–2050. Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: AMillennial Perspective (Paris: Development Centre Studies, 2001),p. 44. 9

1.2 Explaining divergence: between ‘exceptionalism’ and ‘contingency’.Sources: David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Whyare Some so Rich and Others so Poor? (New York: W. W. Norton,1998); E. L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies,and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, 3rd edn(Cambridge University Press, 2003); Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena:Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (Princeton UniversityPress, 2002); Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy: An EconomicHistory of Britain, 1700–1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,2009); Robert C. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in GlobalPerspective (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Maxine Berg, ‘InPursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in theEighteenth Century’, P&P 132 (2004): 85–142; Maxine Berg, Luxuryand Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford University Press,2005); Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia didNot: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2011); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China,Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (PrincetonUniversity Press, 2000). 9






viii / List of figures

2.1 Cotton textile fragment, resist-dyed and mordant-dyed red andresist-dyed blue, fourteenth century. Produced in Gujarat, India, andexcavated in Old Fustat, Egypt. 39.5 × 23 cm. Presented by ProfessorPercy Newberry, 1946. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, EA1990.1129.(See colour plate.) 18

2.2 Cotton cloth, block-printed with resist and mordant-dyed blue,produced in Gujarat c. 1340 (plus or minus forty years) and traded tothe Sulawesi Islands in Southeast Asia. Victoria and Albert Museum,purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund, IS.96–1993.(See colour plate.) 19

2.3 Cotton sash (patka) produced in Burhanpur. Printed, painted anddyed cotton, eighteenth century. Victoria and Albert Museum,IM.311–1921. 22

2.4 Ceremonial hanging with a hunting scene. Block printed andmordant-dyed cotton. Made in Gujarat for the Indonesian market in thestyle of a Gujarati silk patola, late seventeenth to eighteenth century.Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.97–1990. (See colour plate.) 28

2.5 Jacket (baju). Painted mordant-dyed and resist-dyed cotton clothproduced on the Coromandel coast and tailored into a jacket inSumatra, late eighteenth century. Victoria and Albert Museum,purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund, IS.101–1993.(See colour plate.) 28

2.6 Rai Surjan Hada, the ruler of Ranthambhor, northwest India,submitting to the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) in 1569. Thisscene from the Akbarnama (Book of Akbar) was designed by theMughal court artist Mukund and painted by Shankar; it shows theprofusion of textiles used by the court. Victoria and Albert Museum,IS.2:75–1896. (See colour plate.) 31

2.7 Page from an album of sketches of costumes of South India. Opaquewatercolour with letterpress. Company school, c. 1842. C© TheTrustees of the British Museum, Asia Department 1951,1006,0.1.7.(See colour plate.) 32

3.1 A cotton tree as depicted by John Mandeville. 38






ix / List of figures

3.2 (a and b) Two nineteenth-century paintings in Company stylerepresenting ginning with a charkha and the bowing of cotton, 1851.23 × 18.7 cm. C© The Trustees of the British Museum, London, fundedby the Brooke Sewell Permanent Fund 1984.0124.1.1.44 and1984.0124.1.1.56. (See colour plate.) 51

3.3 Bowing: technological diffusion (numbers are centuries CE of inventionand diffusion). Source: see Chapter 3, notes 68–76. 52

3.4 A nineteenth-century painting in Company style representing thespinning and weaving of cotton yarn, 1851. 23 × 18.7 cm. C© TheTrustees of the British Museum, London, funded by BrookeSewell Permanent Fund 1984.0124.1.1.35. (See colour plate.) 53

3.5 The spinning wheel: technological diffusion (numbers arecenturies AD of invention/adoption). Sources: see Chapter 3notes 77–84. 53

3.6 Treadle-operated multi-spindle wheel used for doubling cotton yarn.Illustration from Shui-chuan ta-fang-chhe (1313), 1530 edition, ch. 25,p. 9a; reproduced in Dieter Kuhn, Science and Civilisation in China,vol. V, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part IX. TextileTechnology: Spinning and Reeling (Cambridge University Press, 1998),p. 217. 54

3.7 Water-powered multiple spinning frame used in China probably forramie, Illustration from Shui-chuan ta-fang-chhe (1313), 1530 edition,ch. 20, pp. 17ab; reproduced in Dieter Kuhn, Science and Civilisationin China, vol. V, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part IX. TextileTechnology: Spinning and Reeling (Cambridge University Press, 1998),p. 228. 55

3.8 ‘Weaver Seated at a Loom’. Painting on mica, Company school,c. 1800–50. C© The Trustees of the British Museum 1989,1225,0.18, InMemory of Mrs Dick. (See colour plate.) 57

4.1 Brush drawing of the weaver-saint Kabir. Colour wash on paper madein Panjab (Pakistan), late nineteenth century. Victoria and AlbertMuseum IM.2:59–1917. (See colour plate.) 60






x / List of figures

4.2 Two Indian women winding cotton. Watercolour on paper, earlynineteenth century. C© The Trustees of the British Museum,1880,0.2107. (See colour plate.) 61

4.3 ‘Weavers’ house at Santipore, the Tantıe at his Loom’. Stippleengraving by P. W. Tomkins after a painting by Arthur William Devis.British school, 1797. C© The Trustees of the British Museum.Department of Prints and Drawings 1856,1011.104. 62

4.4 (a) (above) The organisation of production of the Indian cottonindustry; and (b) (below) The organisation of production of theEuropean woollen industry (West of England). Sources: (a) the author;(b) from Maxine Berg, ‘Factories, Workshops and IndustrialOrganisation’, in Donald N. McCloskey and Roderick Floud, eds., TheEconomic History of Britain since 1700, vol. I, 1700–1860 (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994, p. 131). 65

4.5 Blue and white linen and cotton towel, Italy, c. fifteenth century.C© Museum of Fine Arts Boston 06.102. Gift of Miss Louise M.Nathurst. (See colour plate.) 74

4.6 ‘Cloth Printer’ from an album of Kashmiri trades, c. 1850–60.C© The British Library Add.Or.1735 (left) and Add. Or.1714 (right).(See colour plate.) 81

5.1 Painting of selling cloth. Company school, c. 1860. Watercolouron paper, 26.9 × 31.6 cm. Reproduced by kind permissionof the Royal Ontario Museum, Gift of Peter Brock 998.126.6.(See colour plate.) 88

5.2 Cotton coverlet, made in India, c. 1600, embroidered with Tussarthread and produced for the Portuguese market. Victoria and AlbertMuseum 616.1886. (See colour plate.) 91

5.3 Textiles imported from Asia into Europe by the Portuguese Carreiraand the Dutch, English and French East India Companies, 1586–1829.Sources: Carreira da India (1586–1631): James C. Boyajian, PortugueseTrade in Asia under the Habsburgs (Baltimore, MD: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1993), pp. 247–53, 139–40. EEIC (1630–63): ‘Sales inLondon’, from Sergio Aiolfi, Calicos und Gedrucktes Zeug: die






xi / List of figures

Entwicklung der englischen Textilveredelung und der Tuchhandel derEast India Company, 1650–1750 (Stuttgart, 1987), table 10, ‘Estimatesof percentage of cottons’, from A. M. Millard, ‘Analyses of the PortBooks Recording Merchandises Imported in the Port of London . . .Between 1588 and 1640’, unpublished MSS, 1959, TNA Library 382.5Lon. EEIC (1665–1760): K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asiaand the English East India Company 1660–1760 (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1978), pp. 540–1. EIC (1760–1834): database ‘TheEast India Company: Trade and Domestic Financial Statistics,1755–1838’ compiled by Huw Bowen. VOC (1665–1760): Femme S.Gaastra, ‘The Textile Trade of the VOC: The Dutch Response to theEnglish Challenge’, South Asia 19/special issue (1996): 85–95; MichelMorineau, ‘The Indian Challenge: Seventeenth to EighteenthCenturies’, in Sushil Chaudhuri and Michel Morineau, eds., Merchants,Companies and Trade: Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era(Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 273–5; Niels Steensgaard, ‘TheIndian Ocean Network and the Emerging World-Economy,c. 1500–1750’, in Satish Chandra, ed., The Indian Ocean: Explorationsin History, Commerce and Politics (New Delhi: Sage, 1987), p. 126.VOC (1760–89): quantities have been estimated from auction sales(in value) by using an average value per piece calculated for the period1665–1760. FEIC (1720–69): Philippe Haudrere, La Compagniefrancaise des Indes au XVIIIe siecle (1719–1795) (Paris: Librairie del’Inde, 1989), vol. I, p. 293. 94

5.4 Cotton textiles as a percentage of the value of all commodities traded toEurope by the VOC (1700–89) and EIC (1665–1834). Source: presentvolume, figure 5.3. VOC (1760–89): quantities have been calculatedfrom auction sales (in value) by using an average value per piececalculated for the period 1665–1760. 95

5.5 Types of cotton textiles imported into Europe by the EEIC, 1660–1759.Source: Sergio Aiolfi, Calicos und gedrucktes Zeug: die Entwicklungder englischen Textilveredelung und der Tuchhandel der East IndiaCompany, 1650–1750 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1987), pp. 424–8. 97

5.6 An Indian cotton cloth with dark background. Longcloth,block-printed, mordant-dyed and painted cotton, produced in Gujarat,c. 1680–1760. Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.100–1993. Purchasedwith the assistance of the Art Fund. 101






xii / List of figures

5.7 A cotton cloth preferred by Europeans: a woman’s chintz jacket withbirds and flowers on a white background. Produced on the Coromandelcoast for the European market, c. 1725. Victoria and Albert Museum,London, IS.14–1950. Given by G. P. Baker. (See colour plate.) 102

5.8 Part of a palampore, bedcover or hanging, produced on theCoromandel coast for the Indonesian market and found in Sumatra.Cotton, block-printed and painted outline, drawn and resist-dyed,eighteenth century. 324 × 210 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum,London, IS.99–1993. Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund.(See colour plate.) 103

5.9 A large palampore produced on the Coromandel coast for theEuropean market, c. 1720–40. 307 × 248 cm. Victoria and AlbertMuseum, IS.36–1950. Given by G. P. Baker. (See colour plate.) 104

5.10 Block-printed mezzaro inspired by Indian palampores. Produced inGenoa, Italy, early nineteenth century. Victoria and Albert Museum,IS.146–1950. (See colour plate.) 105

5.11 Purchasing price and markup of the EEIC on textiles imported fromIndia, 1664–1829. Sources: K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World ofAsia and the English East India Company 1660–1760 (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1978), pp. 540–1, and the database ‘The East IndiaCompany: Trade and Domestic Financial Statistics, 1755–1838’compiled by Huw Bowen. The import price is expressed in poundssterling. The markup is the sale price at auction in London divided bythe price of purchase in India. 108

6.1 Fragment of a baby’s garment. London Metropolitan Archive,Foundling 220 (15 November 1745). Reproduced from John Styles,Threads of Feeling: The London Foundling Hospitals’ TextileToken, 1740–1770 (London: Foundlings’ Hospital, 2010), p. 33.C© Coram. 111

6.2 Cotton and linen textile prices in London, 1660–1760. Sources: SirWilliam Beveridge, Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth tothe Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1939); K. N. Chaudhuri,The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company1660–1760 (Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 440–8 and






xiii / List of figures

499–502; Carole Shammas, ‘The Decline of Textile Prices in Englandand British America prior to Industrialization’, EHR 47/3 (1994):483–507. Prices in Beveridge and Shammas are taken from thepurchase of cloth by the Greenwich hospital in London and thereforeare less subject to price variations than market prices as they were setby long-term contracts. 114

6.3 ‘The weavers tryumph or an abstract, of the callicoe-act, ofparliament’. Broadsheet, 1722. Reproduced courtesy of Senate HouseLibrary, University of London. 120

6.4 ‘Plombs’ used to identify white cottons and muslin cloth legallyimported into France. Archives Nationales de France, Paris, F121405A. 122

6.5 Part of a palampore made of chintz produced on the Coromandel coastof India, possibly for the European market. Eighteenth century.Victoria and Albert Museum, IS.53&A-1950. Given by G. P. Baker.(See colour plate.) 127

6.6 ‘Homme en robe de chambre’. Etching on paper by Jean Lepautre,Paris, c. 1675. C© The Trustees of the British Museum, Prints &Drawings Department, I,7.160. 128

6.7 Back lining of a stomacher, possibly printed fustian. English, 1740s.C© Manchester Art Gallery, Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, 2008.23.(See colour plate.) 129

6.8 ‘Molly Milton, the Pretty Oyster Woman’. Hand-coloured mezzotintpublished by Carington Bowles after Robert Dighton, London, 1788.C© The Trustees of the British Museum, 1935,0522.1.109.(See colour plate.) 130

6.9 ‘Manufactures a Rouen. 1737. Etoffes de fil et cotton’. Page from theCollection d’echantillons d’etoffes du Marechal de Richelieu,Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, Richelieu, LH-45 (1)-FOL(4),fo. 25. (See colour plate.) 131

6.10 ‘Silk Fringe’ and ‘Flowered Cotton’ from the Foundling Entry Books.London Metropolitan Archive, Foundling 2584 (27 October 1756) and14093 (4 October 1759). Reproduced from John Styles, Threads of






xiv / List of figures

Feeling: The London Foundling Hospital’s Textile Token, 1740–1770(London: Foundlings’ Hospital, 2010), pp. 32–3. C© Coram.(See colour plate.) 132

6.11 Hooded cape, southern France, c. 1790. C© Manchester Art Gallery,Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, 1992.9. (See colour plate.) 134

7.1 Albert Eckhout, African Woman (Brazil, 1641). Oil on canvas,261 × 178 cm. Nationalmuseet, Etnografisk Samling, Copenhagen.(See colour plate.) 136

7.2 ‘Marche d’esclaves’. Plate from M. Chambon, Le Commerce del’Amerique par Marseille (Avignon, 1764). Private collection. 140

7.3 Francisco Clapera, De Chino, e India, Genizara (Mexico, c. 1780).Denver Art Museum, Gift of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2011.482.14.Photography Denver Art Museum. (See colour plate.) 143

7.4 Jose de Alcıbar (attributed), De Espanol y Negra, Mulato (c. 1760).Denver Art Museum: Collection of Frederick and Jan MayerTL-29337. Photo C© James O. Milmoe. (See colour plate.) 145

7.5 Textiles ordered by James Alexander of New York from David Barclayof London, 1726. The New York Historical Society, Alexander Papers,Series 3: Mary Alexander (1736–60), Box 10, Folder 1: ‘MaryAlexander – Fabric Samples’. (See colour plate.) 146

7.6 Indian and English cotton textiles exported to West Africa, 1751–1807.Source: Elizabeth Schumpeter, English Overseas Trade Statistics,1697–1808 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 29–34, tables 10 and11. 149

7.7 Export of English printed cottons and linens by geographical area,1765–1800. Source: Elizabeth Schumpeter, English Overseas TradeStatistics, 1697–1808 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 29–34,tables 10 and 11. 150

7.8 Indiennes produced at Dieppe, 1783. Archives Nationales des France,Paris, F12 1404B. (See colour plate.) 155






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7.9 Typical checks traded to Africa that were seized in Rouen; they wereproduced by a Tocqueville manufacturer in 1785. Archives Nationalesde France, Paris, F12 1412 (See colour plate.) 156

7.10 ‘Manufactures a Rouen. 1737. Siamoiserie’. Page from the Collectiond’echantillons d’etoffes du Marechal de Richelieu, 1737. BibliothequeNationale de France, Paris, Richelieu, LH-45C-FOL(4), fo. 4.(See colour plate.) 158

8.1 ‘Les Travaux de la manufacture’. Toile by Oberkampf, 1783.C© Musee de l’Impression sur Etoffes, Mulhouse, n. 219.(See colour plate.) 161

8.2 The patterning of textiles in Eurasia. 163

8.3 ‘A Weaver’. Print made by Jan van Vliet and published by CornelisDanckerts. Dutch, 1635. British Museum, Prints and Drawings S.219.C© The Trustees of the British Museum. 164

8.4 ‘Malabar de caste Cavari qui peint sur toile’. Calico printer from theMalabar coast of India. Drawing, mid nineteenth century. BibliothequeNationale de France, Paris, Manuscrits orientaux, RC-B-10340, Indien743, fo. 35. 165

8.5 ‘Peintre sur toile’. Probably from the Malabar coast of India,eighteenth century. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris,Estampes et photographie, RC-A-31698, OD-46A-4, fo. 38.(See colour plate.) 166

8.6 Fragment of a European printed cotton, c. 1660–1700. C© ManchesterArt Gallery, Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, 2004.93. (See colourplate.) 166

8.7 Maniere de fabriquer les toiles peintes dans l’Inde. Manuscript, 1734.Bibliotheque Central du Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris,MSS 193(9). C© Paris, Bibliotheque Centrale du MNHN, 2012.(See colour plate.) 168

8.8 ‘Toilles de Cotton . . . Marseille 1736 . . . Indiennes ou Guinees’. Pagefrom the Collection d’echantillons d’etoffes du Marechal de Richelieu,






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1736. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, Richelieu, LH-45(1)-FOL, fo. 28. (See colour plate.) 171

8.9 Joseph Gabriel Maria Rossetti, Manufacture de tissu d’indienne desfreres Wetter (1764). Musee Municipale, Orange, France. C© 2012.White Images/Scala, Florence. (See colour plate.) 174

8.10 Jean-Baptiste Huet, The Factory at Jouy (1807). C© Le Musee Municipalde la Toile de Jouy, Jouy, France. (See colour plate.) 175

8.11 ‘Indigotoire’. French coloured print, second half of the eighteenthcentury. Private collection. 177

8.12 Linen and cotton cloth printed from engraved copper plates andwood blocks and painted blue by Robert Jones & Co., Old Ford,Middlesex, England, 1769. Victoria and Albert Museum T.140–1934.(See colour plate.) 180

9.1 ‘A Pholey Town & Plantation’, from Francis Moore, Travels into theinland parts of Africa: containing a description of the severalnations . . . up the River Gambia (London: Edward Cave, 1738), vol. II,p. 359. 188

9.2 ‘Indigo and Cotton Plants’, from a print by I. C. Philips, 1730. Privatecollection. 192

9.3 ‘Coton’. Plate VIII from M. Chambon, Le Commerce de l’Ameriquepar Marseille (Avignon, 1764). Private collection. 196

9.4 William Berryman, ‘Bagging Cotton’ (in Jamaica). Drawing,c. 1808–15. Library of Congress DRWG 1 – Berryman, no. 158.Reproduced courtesy of the Library of Congress. 199

9.5 Augustin Brunias, At the Linen Market in Santo Domingo. Oilpainting, c. 1775. Museo Thyssen-Bornenisza, Madrid, INV. Nr. CTB.1986.22. 49.6 × 64.8 cm. C© Christie’s Images Ltd – ARTOTHEK.(See colour plate.) 202

9.6 ‘The First Cotton Gin’, Harper’s Weekly, 18 December 1869. Privatecollection. 205






xvii / List of figures

9.7 Charles Giroux, Cotton Plantation. Oil on canvas, c. 1850s–60s.Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 47.1144. Gift of Maxim Karolik for theM. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–65.(See colour plate.) 206

9.8 ‘A Cotton Plantation on the Mississippi’. Lithograph. New York:Currier & Ives, 1884. Courtesy Library of Congress,LC-DIG-pga-00675. 208

9.9 ‘Scene of the Levee, at New Orleans’. Print from Ballou’s Pictorial1855. Private collection. 209

10.1 Sir Richard Arkwright, Japanese print, second half of thenineteenth century. Chadbourne collection of Japanese prints,Library of Congress, hosho paper, LC: FP 2 – Chadbourne,no. 30. 213

10.2 Explanations of changes in cotton production during the IndustrialRevolution. 215

10.3 ‘Coton’. Plate IX from M. Chambon, Le Commerce de l’Amerique parMarseille (Avignon, 1764). Private collection. 218

10.4 ‘Tisserands qui mouillent le coton file avec de l’eau pure’. Drawing,c. 1780. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, Estampes etphotographie, RC-A-31696, OD-46A-4, fo. 36. 219

10.5 European ‘industrious revolution’ and Chinese ‘commercialinvolution’. 220

10.6 Richard Arkwright’s water frame, c. 1775. C© Science Museum,London, Science and Society Picture Library no. 10319128. 226

10.7 Indian weaver from Pierre Sonnerat’s Voyage aux Indes Orientales et aChine (1782). Private collection. 230

10.8 ‘View of Swainson Birley Cotton Mill’, 1834. Print taken from adrawing by Thomas Allom. C© Science Museum, London, Science andSociety Picture Library no. 10243005. 231






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10.9 Plate illustrating sections of Strutt’s cotton mill at Belper in Derbyshire,from Rees’s Cyclopaedia (1819). C© Science Museum, London, Scienceand Society Picture Library no. 10418825. 232

10.10 ‘Dye House’. Plate from John Barrow’s New and Universal Dictionaryof Arts and Sciences (1754). C© Science Museum, London, Science andSociety Picture Library no. 10422641. 233

10.11 ‘View of the print room at Swainson Birley Cotton Mill’, 1834. Printtaken from a drawing by Thomas Allom. C© Science Museum, London,Science and Society Picture Library no. 10243006. 233

11.1 ‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’, engraved in 1687 by Francis Barlow,from Aesop’s Fables, 2nd edn, 1703. Private collection. 239

11.2 ‘Common method of beetling, scutching and hackling the flax’ byWilliam Hincks. Hand-coloured engraving, published London, 20 June1791. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4–4494. 245

11.3 Consumption of raw wool and cotton in Britain, 1700–1850. Sourcesfor cotton: Alfred P. Wadsworth and Julia de Lacy Mann, The CottonTrade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780 (Manchester UniversityPress, 1931), p. 520; B. R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics(Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 331–5. Sources for wool:Phyllis Deane, ‘The Output of the British Woollen Industry in theEighteenth Century’, Journal of Economic History 17/2 (1957):207–23; Giorgio Riello, ‘The Ecology of Cotton in the EighteenthCentury: Possibilities and Potentials’, unpublished paper, October 2005(www2.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/Research/GEHN/GEHNPDF/RielloPadua.pdf); and Giorgio Riello, ‘Counting Sheep: A GlobalPerspective on Wool, 1800–2000’, in Giovanni Luigi Fontana andGerard Gayot, eds., Wool: Products and Markets, 13th–20th Century(Padua: Cleup, 2004), pp. 103–31. 251

11.4 Price of raw cotton from the West Indies, the US South and Syria,1728–1860. Sources for British West Indies, Surinam and Berbice(1728–1820): Brian R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics(Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 759. I used the mean value. Theresult is a possible overevaluation of the British West Indies price.Sources for Upland and Middling American (1801–60): Brian R.






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Mitchell, British Historical Statistics (Cambridge University Press,1988), p. 760. Sources for French West Indies (1749–89): Jean Tarrade,Le Commerce colonial de la France a la fin de l’ancien regime.L’evolution du regime de ‘l’exclusif’ de 1763 a 1789 (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1972), pp. 771–2, based on a ‘quintal de centlivres’ equal to 108 British lbs and 21 livres tournois equal to a Britishpound sterling. Sources for Syrian cotton imported into Holland(1728–1806): P. W. Posthumus, Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1943), pp. 281–3, based on 11 guilders to a Britishpound sterling. 254

11.5 Raw cotton imported into Britain by geographic area, 1700–80 and1791–1850. Sources: Alfred P. Wadsworth and Julia de Lacy Mann,The Cotton and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780 (ManchesterUniversity Press, 1932), p. 520; Barbara Gaye Jaquay, ‘The CaribbeanCotton Production: An Historical Geography of the Region’sMysterious Crop’, unpublished PhD thesis, Texas A&M University,1997, tables 10 and 12. Data for 1791–1820 are just for the port ofLiverpool: Henry Smithers, Liverpool, Its Commerce, Statistics andInstitutions, with a History of the Cotton Trade (Liverpool, 1825) anddata for the period 1821–50 are from the Annual Statements of theTrade and Navigation of Great Britain for their respective years. Nodata is available for the period 1781–90. 257

11.6 ‘Cotton Bales Lying at the Bombay Terminus of the Great IndianPeninsula Railway ready for Shipment to England’. Print from Historyof Indian Railways, 1862. Private collection. 262

12.1 Edgar Degas, Le Bureau de coton a la Nouvelle Orleans en 1873. Oilon canvas, 73 × 92 cm. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France, 2012.White Images / Scala, Florence. 265

12.2 Export of British cotton textiles by world area, 1784–1856. Source:Ralph Davis, ‘The English Export Trade: Textiles from 1784 to 1856’,in Stanley D. Chapman, ed., The Textile Industries, vol. II, Cotton,Linen, Wool and Worsted (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1997),p. 235. 269

12.3 ‘King Cotton of Manchester’. Nazi propaganda, 1943. Privatecollection. 274






xx / List of figures

12.4 Tie-dyed cotton cloth for a turban, Delhi, c. 1880. Victoria and AlbertMuseum, IS.493–1883. 279

12.5 ‘The Progress of Civilization’, from John Russell, Around the Worldwith General Grant: A Narrative of the Visit of General US Grant . . .to Various Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa (New York:American News Co., 1879), vol. II, p. 477. 281

12.6 Power looms in the cotton industry in the world, 1820–1900. Source:Douglas A. Farnie, ‘The Role of Merchants as Prime Movers in theExpansion of the Cotton Industry, 1760–1990’, in Douglas A. Farnieand David J. Jeremy, eds., The Fibre that Changed the World: TheCotton Industry in International Perspective, 1600–1990s (OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), p. 25. 284

13.1 Cotton bandana, India, nineteenth century. Museum of Fine Arts,Boston, 49.461. Gift of Miss Mary Lee, Guy Hunter Lee, Mrs. HenryJackson, Mrs. Thornton K. Ware, and Mrs. Joseph T. Walker, inmemory of Marion Glidden Dove Lee (Mrs. Francis Wilson Lee).(See colour plate.) 289

13.2 The relationship between continents in the old and the new cottonsystems. 291






MAPS

2.1 Key areas of cotton textile production and trade in late seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century India. Source: K. N. Chaudhuri,The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company1660–1760 (Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 244. 21

2.2 The trading world of the Indian Ocean in the early modernperiod. 24

2.3 Systems of exchange in thirteenth-century Eurasia. 26

3.1 The spread of cotton cultivation in Afro-Eurasia. 40

3.2 Long-distance trade of cotton fibres to Jiangnan in the Mingperiod. 45

3.3 Regions of India. 47

4.1 Main areas of cotton manufacturing in the Levant, Middle East andEurope. (Numbers are centuries AD when the industrydeveloped.) 71

9.1 Cotton cultivation: from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. 189

9.2 Cotton-producing islands in the British Caribbean (and percentage oftotal production in 1800). 201

9.3 Cotton cultivation in the US South between 1826 and 1833 (inthousand bales on average a year per dot). Source: Atlas of Agriculture.Part 5. The Crops of the United States (Washington, DC: FederalGovernment, 1915). 206






TABLES

3.1 Import of raw cotton into southern Europe in the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries. 48

3.2 Spinning in medieval and early modern India, China, the Middle Eastand Europe. 56

4.1 Hours’ work to produce a cotton cloth in seventeenth-century Indiaand China. 76

4.2 Producing, cleaning, ginning and spinning cotton in South India andThessaly. 77

4.3 Comparing cotton manufacturing across the early modern world. 78

11.1 British ‘ghost acreages’ for replacing cotton with wool, 1780–1850.241

11.2 Decennial increase in raw material production: cotton and wool,1800–1900. 243

11.3 European ‘ghost acreages’ for replacing cotton with linen, 1830–80.244

11.4 Labour and land impact of the cotton imported into Britain,1780–1850. 247

11.5 Estimated value of the production of woollen and linens in France andBritain, c. 1790. 249






xxiii / List of tables

12.1 Estimates of the number of cotton weavers and cloth output in fourareas of the world in the 1820s and 1840s. 276

13.1 The old and the new cotton systems. 290






PREFACE

Today the world textile and garment trade amounts to a staggering 425 billionUS dollars in value. We are told that under the pressure of increasing glob-alisation, it is Asia – India and China in particular – that is the new world-manufacturing powerhouse. However the recent growth of Asia into the world’sleading textile manufacturer is not a new phenomenon. Until the industrial rev-olution at the end of the eighteenth century, both India and China were leadingeconomic areas and their skills in cotton textile manufacturing were superior tothose of Europe. Asia manufactured great quantities of colourful printed andpainted cottons that were sold across the Indian Ocean and reached farawayplaces such as Japan and Europe where they were craved as exotic fashionablegoods.

Historians have argued that this ensured for Asia – and in particular India –widespread prosperity, as well as high rates of economic growth and technolog-ical development, but that sometime after 1750 Europe experienced a suddenand radical economic transformation: the continent industrialised. Mechanisa-tion was first experienced in the textile sector. The spinning machine allowedone late eighteenth-century European woman to produce as much yarn as threehundred women in India. By the early decades of the nineteenth century, India,China and the Ottoman Empire switched from being world producers to beingbuyers of European cotton textiles, a position that they retained for the followingtwo centuries.

This book is the first global analysis of cotton textiles. It argues that Europe’sengagement with cotton textiles changed the shape of the world we still livein. It brings together the history of European industrialisation and the globalsignificance of cotton textiles. Key to this book is the explanation of when, howand why Europe replaced Asia as the main area of production and trade ofcotton textiles and the profound effects that this generated. Cotton was centralto the creation of a ‘new global system’ increasingly presided over by Europe,






xxv / Preface

not Asia. But technological development was just one among the many factorsexplaining this transition. The importance of raw materials, markets for productsand consumers’ preferences, and the increasing power of European nations overvast areas of the globe are in this book seen as critical in explaining the divergentpaths of Europe and Asia.

This book was researched and written over a period of several years. Itsoriginal idea and formulation emerged from the activities of the Leverhulme-funded Global Economic History Network (GEHN) based at the London Schoolof Economics and coordinated by Patrick O’Brien between 2003 and 2007.The network constituted the first truly collaborative platform for research anddiscussion in the field of global economic history. Over the years, I learned a greatdeal about global history and about the challenges posed by this relatively newfield of historical enquiry. I also learned from Patrick what historians should aimfor, a lesson that is more important than any other. Several members of GEHNprovided much needed support. I would like to thank in particular Kent Deng,Kenneth Pomeranz, Om Prakash, Kaoru Sugihara and Peer Vries. I have also aconsiderable debt to the late Larry Epstein.

My move to the University of Warwick in 2007 and the foundation of theGlobal History and Culture Centre was a second and no less important stage inthe shaping of this book. It allowed me to engage with a new agenda in culturaland social history that has greatly enriched my analysis. I also found the bestcolleagues that one can hope for, in particular Maxine Berg, Anne Gerritsenand Luca Mola. The four of us developed courses and organised sometimeslogistically complicated events and trips that entailed cooking dyes in a famousLondon museum, broken arms, and getting lost in Beijing. The Warwick GlobalHistory and Culture Centre has provided the perfect setting for completing theresearch included in this book.

Adventure and friendship mix together. Beverly Lemire, Peter McNeil andJohn Styles were great companions in several trips to archives, museums andartisans’ workshops in Europe, North America and Asia. We risked our liveson at least a couple of motorways and got lost in dodgy neighbourhoods, allin the name of research. Tirthankar Roy and Prasannan Parthasarathi rescuedme from the maze of editing books. My collaboration with both of them hasbeen essential for the writing of this book as has been the intellectual inputof over thirty contributors to these edited projects. I would like to thank inparticular Prasannan for checking on me every week during the writing of thisbook, making sure that it was completed.

Maxine Berg, Pat Hudson, Beverly Lemire, Patrick O’Brien, PrasannanParthasarathi and John Styles read closely the entire manuscript, comment-ing, questioning and correcting it. Needless to say that any remaining errors






xxvi / Preface

are entirely their fault! Shengfang Chou, Amy Evans and Sara van Dijk pro-vided much needed research and practical assistance. Glenn Adamson, Alainand Michele Bresson, Barbara Canepa, Giovanni Luigi Fontana, Kayoko Fujita,Sakis Gekas, Regina Grafe, Hannah Greig, Philippe Minard, Maria GiuseppinaMuzzarelli, Liliane Perez, Jeannie Siegman and the late Tony Siegman, ClaudiaStein, Sarah Teasley, Elisa Tosi Brandi and Amanda Vickery have been greatfriends and have supported this project in different and extraordinary ways.Richard Butler read every single word with enormous patience and care. Finally,my mother, brother, sister-in-law and nieces Eleonora and Anastasia hope thatthe book will be soon translated into Italian so that they can find out what it isabout.

Any heartless economic historian like me should point out that love andfriendship do not pay bills. The research and writing of this book has been pos-sible thanks to the financial support and hospitality of the following instutions:Australian National University, Canberra; British Academy; Ecole des HautesEtudes in Sciences Sociales, Paris; European University Institute; Leverhulme-funded Global Economic History Network, LSE; Fondation Les Treilles,France; Leverhulme Trust; Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University;University of Technology Sydney; and Warwick Global History and CultureCentre.

Several libraries, archives and museums allowed me to use their collections. Iwould like to thank in particular: Archives Nationales de France, Paris; Ash-molean Museum, Oxford; Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; BostonMuseum of Fine Arts; British Library, London; British Museum, London; Euro-pean University Institute Library, Florence; Institute of Historical Research,London; London School of Economics Library; Musee de l’Impression surEtoffes, Mulhouse; National Archives, Kew; National Art Library at the Victoriaand Albert Museum, London; The New York Historical Society; The Philadel-phia Museum of Art; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; School of Oriental andAfrican Studies Library, London; Stanford University Library; University of Lon-don Library; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Warburg Institute Library,London; University of Warwick Library.

Several institutions kindly invited me to present my research. The list overthe years has become so long that I will mention only the cities where myresearch brought me: Aix-en-Provence, Beijing, Bilbao, Binghamton, Boston,Cambridge, Catania, Coventry, Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Florence, Konstanz,Helsinki, Istanbul, Leicester, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Norwich, Osaka,Padua, Paris, Pune, Reading, Santa Cruz, Stanford, Stockholm, Sydney, Uppsala,Utrecht, Wilmington – Delaware, York and Wolverhampton.






xxvii / Preface

I am particularly grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the Leverhulme ResearchFellowship (RF/3/RFG/2010/0089) and the Stanford Humanities Center for theExternal Fellowship (2010–11) that enabled me to complete this book. Thispublication has been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation inassociation with the Institute of Historical Research and the financial assistanceof the Humanities Research Fund at the University of Warwick.

The majority of this book was written in Palo Alto while a fellow at theStanford Humanities Center. I was surrounded by a group of absorbing scholarswho made me often forget the throbbing toothache that accompanied the slowwriting of this work.

To Anastasia and EleonoraChristmas 2012






ABBREVIATIONS

AHR American Historical ReviewANF Archives Nationales de France, ParisBNF Bibliotheque Nationale de France, ParisBPP British Parliamentary PapersEEIC English East India CompanyEHR Economic History ReviewFEIC French East India CompanyIESHR Indian Economic and Social History ReviewJAS Journal of Asian StudiesJEEH Journal of European Economic HistoryJEH Journal of Economic HistoryJESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientJGH Journal of Global HistoryJWH Journal of World HistoryNA National Archives, Kew, LondonP&P Past & PresentTH Textile HistoryVOC Dutch East India Company






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