Lord Macaulay declared that "what Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States." When Macaulay delivered this opinion, "King Cotton" was more absolute in the United States than to-day, for the cultivation of cotton has since been supplemented in this country by other industries of equal importance. Yet, what cotton had done for the United States in Macaulay's day has been far surpassed by its record since, as one of the great industrial and commercial interests of the land; and judged by export values, as estimated by the specialist Dabney, at one time Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, cotton is still king of the American market.The growth of the cotton industry in the United States, traced so minutely by Handy, witnesses from one decade to another to the supreme achievement of the American inventor so highly estimated by Macaulay. Eli Whitney was born at Westboro, Massachusetts, in 1765, and died in 1825. In 1792 he was graduated at Yale College, and that year became a teacher in Georgia, where he invented the cotton-gin. Before he could secure a patent his machine was stolen from his workshop, and others reaped the profits of his ingenuity. It is pleasing to know that he afterward made a fortune by other uses of his inventive skill. His service to the cotton industry in all its departments has not only been vastly influential in the development of his own country, but has also greatly affected the relations of the United States with other industrial nations, especially with Great Britain, the leading cotton-manufacturing country of the world.
Lord Macaulay declared that "what Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States." When Macaulay delivered this opinion, "King Cotton" was more absolute in the United States than to-day, for the cultivation of cotton has since been supplemented in this country by other industries of equal importance. Yet, what cotton had done for the United States in Macaulay's day has been far surpassed by its record since, as one of the great industrial and commercial interests of the land; and judged by export values, as estimated by the specialist Dabney, at one time Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, cotton is still king of the American market.
The growth of the cotton industry in the United States, traced so minutely by Handy, witnesses from one decade to another to the supreme achievement of the American inventor so highly estimated by Macaulay. Eli Whitney was born at Westboro, Massachusetts, in 1765, and died in 1825. In 1792 he was graduated at Yale College, and that year became a teacher in Georgia, where he invented the cotton-gin. Before he could secure a patent his machine was stolen from his workshop, and others reaped the profits of his ingenuity. It is pleasing to know that he afterward made a fortune by other uses of his inventive skill. His service to the cotton industry in all its departments has not only been vastly influential in the development of his own country, but has also greatly affected the relations of the United States with other industrial nations, especially with Great Britain, the leading cotton-manufacturing country of the world.
Cotton is the principal product of eight great States of the American Union, and the most valuable "money crop" of the entire country. Climatic conditions practically restrict its cultivation to a group of States constituting less than one-fourth of the total area of the country, and yet the value of the annual crop is exceeded among cultivated products only by corn, which is grownin every State of the Union, and occasionally by wheat. Cotton furnishes the raw material for one of our most important manufacturing industries and from one-fourth to one-third of our total exports.
Considered without reference to any particular country, its economic importance is far beyond numerical expression; for while the total crop of the world is approximately ascertainable, the effect of cotton upon the commercial and social relations of mankind is too far-reaching for estimation. Of the four great staples that provide man with clothing—cotton, silk, wool, and flax—cotton, by reason of its cheapness and its many excellencies, is rapidly superseding its several rivals. Sixty years ago only about two million five hundred thousand bales of cotton, or less than the present production of Texas, were annually converted into clothing; the spindles of the world now use over thirteen million bales per annum. Yet less than half the people of the world are supplied with cotton goods made by modern machinery, and it has been estimated that it would require annually a crop of forty-two million bales of five hundred pounds each to raise the world's standard of consumption to that of the principal nations.
Cotton stands preëminent among farm crops in the ease and cheapness of its production, as compared with the variety and value of its products. No crop makes so slight a drain upon the fertility of the soil, and for none has modern enterprise found so many uses for its several parts. The cotton plant yields, in fact, a double crop—a most beautiful fibre and a seed yielding both oil and feed, which, although neglected for a long time, is now esteemed worth one-sixth as much as the fibre. In addition to this, the stems can be made to yield a fibre which waits only for a machine to work it, and the roots yield a drug. It is entirely possible, therefore, that cotton may ultimately be grown as much for these parts as for the lint.
The history of cotton production in the United States differs from that of almost every other agricultural product in several important particulars. For nearly three-quarters of a century slave labor was almost exclusively employed in this branch of agricultural industry, and an immense majority of the colored people of to-day look to it for their chief support. Cotton wasalso the great pioneer crop in the new Southwestern States. Not only has the westward movement of the industry been more rapid than that of any other crop, but the centre of production has always been farther in advance of the centre of population. As long ago as 1839 Mississippi was producing almost one-fourth of the entire crop of the country. Recent years have witnessed an enormous development in the regions to the west, which would have carried the centre of production across the Mississippi River if the cultivation of cotton, unlike that of wheat and corn and other products, had not taken a new lease of life in the older States along the Atlantic seaboard, where the use of manures has both extended the area and increased the production.
Probably no equally great industry was ever more completely paralyzed or had its future placed in greater jeopardy than cotton growing in the United States during the war of 1861-1865. So great was the decrease in production which followed the effectual closing of the ports that only one bale of cotton was grown in 1864-1865 for every fifteen bales raised in 1861-1862. The chief menace to the future of cotton production lay in the efforts that were put forth by other cotton-growing countries at this time to produce those particular varieties which had for so long given the United States the monopoly of the European markets; and nothing could more completely demonstrate the remarkable adaptation of our Southern States to the growing of varieties which the experience of generations has proved to be the best for manufacturing purposes than the fact that it took them only thirteen years from the end of the war to regain the primacy of position which they held at its commencement.
When cotton manufacture was introduced into England is not definitely settled. There is no mention of the manufacture or use of cotton in the celebrated poor-law of Elizabeth (1601), though hemp, flax, and wool are expressly named. The first authentic record is in Roberts'Treasure of Traffic, published in 1641; but it is possible, and even probable, that the art was imported from Flanders by the artisans who fled from that country to England in the latter part of the sixteenth century, as it is probable that the manufacture had established itself more or lessfirmly before it attracted the attention of the author of the above-named pamphlet. We may presume, then, that it was well established in England by 1641, but after that date the spread was not rapid. The crudeness of the machinery for spinning was such that fine yarn could not be made. Both spinning and weaving were done by individuals and families in their own houses on clumsy and heavy machines. These implements were but little better than those in use two thousand years before. The distaff, the earliest of spinning-machines, was still in use, and the best to be had was the one-thread spinning-wheel. The loom used was scarcely an improvement on that which the East Indian had used centuries before, though it was constructed with greater firmness and compactness. Owing to imperfections in their machines, it was impossible for the Europeans to make cotton yarn combining strength and firmness. The yarn when spun was loose and flimsy; to make it strong it had to be heavy.
The finished web had often to be carried a long distance to market. It was only in 1760 that Manchester merchants began to furnish the weavers in the neighboring villages with linen yarn and raw cotton and to pay a fixed price for the perfected web, thus relieving the weavers of the necessity of providing themselves with material and seeking a market for their cloth, and enabling them to prosecute their employment with greater regularity.
It was also about that time that England began to export her cotton goods, for until then her weavers had not been able to do more than supply the home demand. This foreign trade at once increased the demand for cotton goods, and the increased demand presented a problem which the manufacturers at first found difficult of solution. The procuring of supplies of linen yarn needed for the warp of these textiles was not difficult, but where was the cotton yarn to come from? The spinners were producing already as much as their rude machines would permit, and additional spinners were not to be had. The demand for cotton thread exceeded the supply; the price of yarn rose with the demands of trade and the extension of the manufacture and operated as a check to the further increase of the exports. The trade had reached the point where hand carders, single-thread spinning-wheels, and the hand-loom, requiring a man to each machine,were clearly inadequate to the service, and the cotton trade of Great Britain in the middle of the eighteenth century seemed to have reached its limit. About this time Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Cartwright, and Watt, men either directly or indirectly engaged in and familiar with the needs of the cotton manufacture, invented machines which raised the trade from an experimental or at least a struggling industry into the most important manufacture of the world. The carding-engine, the spinning-jenny, the spinning-frame, the stocking-frame, the power-loom, and the adaptation of the steam-engine to the propulsion of these machines, at once supplied the means of producing an immense amount of yarn and cloth. These inventions, it is true, were not in themselves perfect, but the principles on which they were built are those on which the most complicated textile machines of this day are based.
The supply of raw material to meet the demands of the trade was limited. The West Indies, the Levant, and India were the countries from which this supply was drawn, but they were unable to furnish enough raw cotton to keep the new machines in operation, and it was necessary to look elsewhere.
America was the only hope of the cotton manufacturer; but as at that time the United States produced little or no cotton, for a few years all the increased supply came from Brazil.
As Great Britain was the last of the European countries to take up cotton manufacture, and has carried it to its fullest development, so the United States was the last to enter the list of cotton-producing countries, and has been for nearly a hundred years the foremost of them all. The powerful influence that the production of cotton has had upon the commerce, industrial development, and civil institutions of the United States can scarcely be realized by one unfamiliar with the subject.
It is doubtful whether cotton is indigenous to any part of this country, as we have no authentic record of the precise time of its introduction. Cotton seed was brought in from all quarters of the globe, and the American plant, the result of innumerable crossings, remains, as to its origin, a puzzle to botanists.
The beginning of the culture of cotton in the United States occurred about one hundred seventy-five years before the industry became at all important. The first effort to producecotton on the North American continent was probably made at Jamestown the year of the arrival of the colonists. In a pamphlet entitledNova Britannica; Offering Most Excellent Fruits of Planting in Virginia, published in London in 1609, it is stated that cotton would grow as well in that province as in Italy. In another pamphlet, calledA Declaration of the State of Virginia, published in London in 1620, the author mentions cotton, wool, and sugar-cane among the "naturall commodities dispersed up and downe the divers parts of the world; all of which may also be had in abundance in Virginia."
According to Bancroft, the first experiment in cotton culture in the colonies was made in Virginia during Wyatt's administration of the government. Writing of that period he says: "The first culture of cotton in the United States deserves commemoration. In this year (1621) the seeds were planted as an experiment, and their 'plentiful coming up' was at that early day a subject of interest in America and England."
Cotton-wool was listed in that year at eightpence a pound, which shows that it may have been grown earlier, for it is scarcely possible that it could have been grown, cleaned, and received in market in the same year. Seabrook states that the "green-seed," or upland, variety was certainly grown in Virginia to a limited extent at least one hundred thirty years before the Revolution. Some of the early governors of that colony were especially energetic in their efforts to encourage its cultivation. Among these were Sir William Berkeley; Francis Morrison, his deputy, and Sir Edmund Andros. The latter, says one authority, "gave particular marks of his favor toward the propagation of cotton, which since his time has been much neglected."
The exports of the Virginia colony during the first thirty years of its existence were confined almost exclusively to tobacco, but there is evidence that in the latter half of the seventeenth century cotton was cultivated and manufactured among the planters for domestic consumption. Burk states that "after the Restoration (1660) their attention was strongly attracted to home manufactures as well by the necessities of their position as by the encouragement of the assembly and the bounty offered by the King. But the zeal displayed in the outset for these products gradually cooled, and if we except the manufacture of coarsecloths and unpainted cotton, nothing remained of the sounding list prepared with so much labor by the King and recommended by legislation, premium, and royal bounty."
Among the earliest historical references to cotton in this country is that contained inA Brief Description of the Province of Carolina, on the Coasts of Florida, and More Particularly of a New Plantation Begun by the English at Cape Feare, on that River, now by them called Georges River, published in London in 1666. The author of this tract, whose name is not given, says: "In the midst of this fertile province, in the latitude of 34°, there is a colony of English seated, who landed there May 29, 1664." After giving an account of the fertility of the soil and its natural products, he adds: "But they have brought with them most sorts of seeds and roots of the Barbados, which thrive in this most temperate clime. They have indigo, very good tobacco, and cotton-wool." Robert Home mentions cotton among the products of South Carolina in 1666. In Samuel Wilson'sAccount of the Province of Carolina in America, addressed to the Earl of Craven, and published in London in 1682, it is stated that "cotton of the Cyprus and Smyrna sort grows well, and good plenty of the seed is sent thither," and among the instructions given by the proprietors of South Carolina to Mr. West, the first governor, is the following: "You are then to furnish yourself with cotton-seed, indigo, and ginger-roots." He was also instructed to receive the products of the country in payment of rents at certain fixed valuations, among which cotton was priced at three and one-half pence per pound.
In 1697, in a memoir addressed to Count de Pontchartrain on the importance of establishing a colony in Louisiana, the author, after describing the natural productions of the country, says: "Such are some of the advantages which may be reasonably expected, without counting those resulting from every day's experience. We might, for example, try the experiment of cultivating long-staple cotton." The presumption is that the short-staple variety had already been tried. In the very beginning of the eighteenth century cotton culture in North Carolina had reached the extent of furnishing one-fifth of the people with their clothing. Lawson, speaking of the prosperity of the country and commending the industry of the women, says: "We have not only provisionplentiful, but clothes of our own manufacture, which are made and daily increase; cotton, wool, and flax being of our own growth; and the women are to be highly commended for industry in spinning and ordering their housewifery to so great an advantage as they do."
About this time cotton became widely distributed and cotton-patches were common in Carolina. In fact, it is said to have been one of the principal commodities of Carolina as early as 1708, but its culture was only for domestic uses, and the same authority speaks of its being spun by the women.
Charlevoix, in 1722, while on his voyage down the Mississippi, saw "very fine cotton on the tree" growing in the garden of Sieur le Noir; and Captain Roman, of the British Army, saw in East Mississippi black-seeded cotton growing on the farm of Mr. Krebs, and also a machine invented by Mr. Krebs for the separation of the seed and lint. This was a roller-gin, and possibly the first ever in operation in this country.
Pickett says that in 1728 the colony of Louisiana, which at that date occupied nearly all the southwest part of the United States, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, was in a flourishing condition, its fields being cultivated, by more than two thousand slaves, in cotton, indigo, tobacco, and grain.
Peter Purry, the founder of Purryville, in South Carolina, in his description of the Province of South Carolina, drawn up in Charleston in 1731, says, "Flax and cotton thrive admirably."
In 1734 cotton-seed was planted in Georgia, being sent there by Philip Nutter, of Chelsea, England. Francis Moore, who visited Savannah in 1735, in his description of that place, says: "At the bottom of the hill, well sheltered from the north wind and in the warmest part of the garden, there was a collection of West Indian plants and trees, some coffee, some cocoa-nuts, cotton, etc."
About the same time the settlers on the Savannah River, about twenty-one miles north of Savannah, are said to have experimented with cotton, the date being fixed by McCall as 1738. One of the striking features connected with the early culture of cotton in the American colonies is that it was grown as far north as the 39° of latitude. Trench Coxe, of Philadelphia, who contributed so greatly to the early success of the culture and manufactureof cotton in the United States, says: "It is a fact well authenticated to the writer that the cultivation of cotton on the garden scale, though not at all as a planter's crop, was intimately known and thoroughly practised in the vicinity of Easton, in the county of Talbot, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, as early as 1736."
Its cultivation was so well understood in this part of the country that, according to the same authority, the necessities of the Revolutionary War occasioned it to be raised for army use in the counties of Cape May, New Jersey, and Sussex, Delaware, and it continued to be raised, though only in small quantities, for family use. At the time of the Revolution, the home-grown cotton was sufficiently abundant in Pennsylvania to supply the domestic needs of that State. Cotton was also cultivated in Charles, St. Mary's, and Dorchester counties, Maryland, as late as 1826. And at a later date (1861-1864) upland cotton was cultivated, and at the prices current at that date was a most profitable crop on the eastern shore of Maryland. Cotton was grown with very good results in Northampton County, on the eastern shore of Virginia, in those years.
The culture and improvement of cotton had received considerable attention by the planters of South Carolina and Georgia as early as 1742. In 1739 Samuel Auspourguer attested under oath that the "climate and soil of Georgia are very fit for raising cotton." William Spicer also certified to the adaptability of the country for cotton production, and that he had "brought over with him (to London) several pods of cotton which grew in Georgia."
A tract entitledA State of the Province of Georgia, Attested Under Oath in the Court of Savannah, published in 1740, says of cotton that "large quantities had been raised, and it is much planted; but the cotton, which in some parts is perennial, dies here in the winter; nevertheless the annual is not inferior to it in goodness, but requires more trouble in cleansing from the seed." In the same tract it was "proposed that a bounty be settled on every product of the land, viz., corn, peas, potatoes, wine, silk, cotton," etc. InA Description of Georgia, by a Gentleman who has Resided there Upward of Seven Years and was One of the First Settlers, published in London in 1741, the author states that"the annual cotton grows well there, and has been by some industrious people made into clothes."
Samuel Seabrook, inAn Important Inquiry into the State and Utility of Georgia, published in 1741, says, "Among other beneficial articles of trade which it is found can be raised there, cotton, of which some has also been brought over as a sample, is mentioned." In his description of St. Simon's Island the same author says: "The country is well cultivated, several parcels of land not far distant from the camp of General Oglethorpe's regiment having been granted in small lots to the soldiers, many of whom are married. The soldiers raise cotton, and their wives spin it and knit it into stockings."
A publication in London in 1762 says: "What cotton and silk both the Carolinas send us is excellent and calls aloud for encouragement of its cultivation in a place well adapted to raise both."
Captain Robinson, an Englishman who visited the coast of Florida in 1754, says the "cotton-tree was growing in that country." The Florida territory then extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. That it was cultivated in East Florida about ten years after this is evidenced by William Stork, who says, "I am informed of a gentleman living upon the St. John's that the lands on that river below Piccolata are in general good, and that there is growing there now (1765) good wheat, Indian corn, indigo, and cotton."
Cotton early attracted the attention of the French colonists in Louisiana. In the year 1752, Michel, in a report to the French minister on the condition of the country, gave interesting details of the cultivation of cotton and the difficulty found in separating the wool from the seed.
In 1758 white Siam seed was introduced into Louisiana. Du Prate says, "This East India annual plant has been found to be much better and whiter than what is cultivated in our colonies, which is of the Turkey kind."
Letters from Paris to Governor Roman state that there is among the French archives at Paris, Department of Marine and Colonies, a most curious and instructive report on cotton in 1760. It was found to be a very profitable crop in Louisiana, for in the year 1768 the French planters, in a memoir to their Government,complained that the parent Government had turned them over to the Spaniards just "at the time when a new mine had been discovered; when the culture of cotton, improved by experience, promises the planter a recompense of his toils, and furnishes persons engaged in fitting out vessels with the cargoes to load them."
In 1762 Captain Bossu, of the French marines, said: "Cotton of this country (Louisiana) is of the species called the 'white cotton of Siam.' It is neither so fine nor so long as the silk cotton, but it is, however, very white and very fine."
In 1775 the Provincial Congress of South Carolina recommended the cultivation of cotton, and in the same year a similar enactment was passed by the Virginia Assembly, which declared that "all persons having proper land ought to cultivate and raise a quantity of hemp, flax, and cotton, not only for the use of their own families, but to spare to others on moderate terms." This legislation no doubt was suggested on account of the changed relations of the colonies with Great Britain.
In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, in a letter, says: "The four southernmost States make a great deal of cotton. Their poor are almost entirely clothed with it in winter and summer. In winter they wear shirts of it and outer clothing of cotton and wool mixed. In summer their shirts are linen, but the outer clothing cotton. The dress of the women is almost entirely of cotton, manufactured by themselves, except the richer class, and even many of these wear a great deal of homespun cotton. It is as well manufactured as the calicoes of Europe."
At the convention at Annapolis in 1786 James Madison expressed the conviction that from the experience already had "from the garden practice in Talbot County, Maryland, and the circumstances of the same kind abounding in Virginia, there was no reason to doubt that the United States would one day become a great cotton-producing country." This year Sea Island cotton-seed was introduced into Georgia, the seed being sent from the Bahama Islands to Governor Tatnall, William Spaulding, Richard Leake, and Alexander Pisset, of that State. The cotton adapted itself to the climate, and every successive year from 1787 saw long-staple cotton extending itself along the shores of South Carolina and Georgia.
According to Thomas Spaulding, the first planter who attempted cotton culture on a large scale was Richard Leake, of Savannah, but the editor ofNiles Register(1824) says that Nichol Turnbull, a native of Smyrna, was the first planter who cultivated cotton upon a scale for exportation. His residence was at Deptford Hall, three miles from Savannah, where he died in 1824.
In a letter dated Savannah, December 11, 1788, to Colonel Thomas Proctor, of Philadelphia, Leake says: "I have been this year an adventurer—and the first that has attempted it on a large scale—in introducing a new staple for the planting interests—the article of cotton—samples of which I beg leave now to send you and request you will lay them before the Philadelphia Society for Encouraging Manufactures, that the quality may be inspected. Several here, as well as in North Carolina, have followed me and tried the experiment, and it is likely to answer our most sanguine expectations. I shall raise about five thousand pounds in the seed from eight acres of land, and next year I intend to plant about fifty to one hundred acres if suitable encouragement is given. The principal difficulty that arises to us is the cleansing it from the seed, which I am told they do with great dexterity and ease in Philadelphia with gins or machines made for the purpose. I am told they make those that will clean thirty to forty pounds clean cotton in a day and upon very simple construction."
The first attempt in South Carolina to produce Sea Island cotton was made in 1788 by Mrs. Kinsey Burden at Burden's Island. As early as 1779 the short staple was produced by her husband, whose negroes were clothed in homespun cotton cloth. Mrs. Burden's efforts failed. The plants did not mature, and this was attributed to the seed, which was of the Bourbon variety. The first successful variety appears to have been grown by William Elliot on Hilton Head, near Beaufort, in 1790, with five and one-half bushels of seed, which he bought in Charleston and for which he paid fourteen shillings a bushel. He sold his crop for ten and one-half pence a pound.
In 1791 John Scriven, of St. Luke's Parish, planted thirty to forty acres on St. Mary's River. He sold it for from one shilling twopence to one shilling sixpence per pound. It is certain that at this period many planters on the Sea Islands and contiguousmainland experimented with long-staple cotton, and probably it was produced by them for market.
One of the earliest reports of export of cotton from the colonies is a bill of lading which certifies that on July 20, 1751, Henry Hansen shipped, "in good order and well conditioned, in and upon the good snow called the Mary, whereof is master under God, for this present voyage, Barnaby Badgers, and now riding in the harbor of New York, and by God's grace bound for London—to say—eighteen bales of cotton-wool, being marked and numbered as in the margin, and are to be delivered in like good order and conditioned, at the aforesaid port of London—the danger of the sea only excepted—unto Messrs. Horke and Champior or their assigns, he or they paying freight for the said goods, three farthings per pound, primage and average accustomed."
The feeling regarding the culture and manufacture of cotton in the colonies at this period may be gathered from the following extract from a letter of July 7, 1749, addressed by the Georgia office of London to the Governor of Georgia: "You say, sir, likewise in your letter, that the people of Vernonburgh and Acton are giving visible appearance of revising their industry; that they are propagating large quantities of flax and cotton, and that they are provided with weavers, who have already wove several large pieces of cloth of a useful sort, whereof they sold divers, and some they made use of in their own families. The account of their industry is highly satisfactory to the trustees; but as to manufacturing the produces they raise, they must expect no encouragement from the trustees, for setting up manufactures which may interfere with those of England might occasion complaints here, for which reason you must, as they will, discountenance them; and it is necessary for you to direct the industry of these people into a way which might be more beneficial to themselves and would prove satisfactory to the trustees and the public; that is, to show them what advantages they will reap from the produce of silk, which they will receive immediate pay for, and that this will not interfere with or prevent their raising flax or cotton, or any other produces for exportation, unmanufactured."
A pamphlet entitledA Description of South Carolinastates that cotton was imported to Carolina from the West Indies, and it is probable that the early shipments from this country were ofthis West Indian cotton, although English writers mentioned it as an import of Carolina cotton.
Donnell says: "The first regular exportation of cotton from Charleston was in 1785, when one bag arrived at Liverpool, per ship Diana, to John and Isaac Teasdale & Co. The exportation of cotton from the United States could not have been much earlier, for we find in 1784 eight bags shipped to England were seized on the ground of fraudulent importation, as it was not believed that so much cotton could be produced in the United States."
The exportation during the next six years was successively 6, 14, 109, 389, 842, and 81 bags.
Dana gives the followingdataconcerning the export movement from 1739 to 1793:
"1739. Samuel Auspourguer, a Swiss living in Georgia, took over to London, at the time of the controversy about the introduction of slaves, a sample of cotton raised by him in Georgia. This we may call, in the absence of a better starting-point, the first export."1747. During this year several bags of cotton, valued at £3 11s. 5d. per bag, were exported from Charleston. Doubts as to this being of American growth have been expressed, but as cotton had been cultivated in South Carolina for many years there does not seem to be any reason for such doubts. Besides, English writers mention it as an import of Carolina cotton."1753. 'Some cotton' is mentioned among the exports of Carolina in 1753, and of Charleston in 1757."1764. Eight (8) bags of cotton imported into Liverpool from the United States."1770. Three (3) bales shipped to Liverpool from New York; ten (10) bales from Charleston; four (4) from Virginia and Maryland; and three (3) barrels from North Carolina."1784. About fourteen (14) bales shipped to great Britain, of which eight (8) were seized as improperly entered. [See above.]"1785. Five (5) bags imported at Liverpool."1786. Nine hundred (900) pounds imported into Liverpool."1787. Sixteen thousand three hundred fifty (16,350) pounds imported into Liverpool."1788. Fifty-eight thousand five hundred (58,500) pounds imported into Liverpool."1789. One hundred twenty-seven thousand five hundred (127,500) pounds imported into Liverpool."1790. Fourteen thousand (14,000) pounds imported into Liverpool. We can find no reason for this marked decline in the exports except it may be that the crop was a failure that year. Our first supposition was that the cause was one of price, but on examining the quotations in Took's work on 'high and low prices' we do not see any marked decline in the values of other descriptions of cotton, and the American staple is not given in his list until 1793."1791. One hundred eighty-nine thousand five hundred (189,500) pounds imported into Liverpool, the price averaging here 26 cents."1792. One hundred thirty-eight thousand three hundred twenty-eight (138,328) pounds imported into Liverpool."
"1739. Samuel Auspourguer, a Swiss living in Georgia, took over to London, at the time of the controversy about the introduction of slaves, a sample of cotton raised by him in Georgia. This we may call, in the absence of a better starting-point, the first export.
"1747. During this year several bags of cotton, valued at £3 11s. 5d. per bag, were exported from Charleston. Doubts as to this being of American growth have been expressed, but as cotton had been cultivated in South Carolina for many years there does not seem to be any reason for such doubts. Besides, English writers mention it as an import of Carolina cotton.
"1753. 'Some cotton' is mentioned among the exports of Carolina in 1753, and of Charleston in 1757.
"1764. Eight (8) bags of cotton imported into Liverpool from the United States.
"1770. Three (3) bales shipped to Liverpool from New York; ten (10) bales from Charleston; four (4) from Virginia and Maryland; and three (3) barrels from North Carolina.
"1784. About fourteen (14) bales shipped to great Britain, of which eight (8) were seized as improperly entered. [See above.]
"1785. Five (5) bags imported at Liverpool.
"1786. Nine hundred (900) pounds imported into Liverpool.
"1787. Sixteen thousand three hundred fifty (16,350) pounds imported into Liverpool.
"1788. Fifty-eight thousand five hundred (58,500) pounds imported into Liverpool.
"1789. One hundred twenty-seven thousand five hundred (127,500) pounds imported into Liverpool.
"1790. Fourteen thousand (14,000) pounds imported into Liverpool. We can find no reason for this marked decline in the exports except it may be that the crop was a failure that year. Our first supposition was that the cause was one of price, but on examining the quotations in Took's work on 'high and low prices' we do not see any marked decline in the values of other descriptions of cotton, and the American staple is not given in his list until 1793.
"1791. One hundred eighty-nine thousand five hundred (189,500) pounds imported into Liverpool, the price averaging here 26 cents.
"1792. One hundred thirty-eight thousand three hundred twenty-eight (138,328) pounds imported into Liverpool."
Great difficulty was experienced in separating the seed from the lint of upland cotton. The work was done by hand, the task being four pounds of lint cotton per week from each head of a family, in addition to the usual field-work. This would amount to one bale in two years. A French planter of Louisiana (Dubreuil) is said to have invented a machine for separating lint and seed as early as 1742. The demand for such a machine not being very great at that date, no record as to its character has been preserved. The roller-gin, in very much the same form as Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, found it in India, was still in use. In 1790 Dr. Joseph Eve, originally from the Bahamas, but then a resident of Augusta, Georgia, made great improvements on this ancient machine, and adapted it to be run by horse- or water-power. A correspondent of the American Museum, writing from Charleston, South Carolina, in July of that year, states "that a gentleman well acquainted with the cotton manufacture had already completed and in operation, on the high hills of Santee, near Statesburg, ginning, carding, and other machines driven by water, and also spinning-machines with eighty-five spindles each, with every article necessary for manufacturing cotton." A machine dating anterior to this year, and having a strong resemblance to the above, possessing in fact allthe essentials of a modern cotton-gin, was exhibited at the Atlanta Exposition in 1882. It came from the neighborhood of Statesburg, but its history could not be ascertained.
In 1793 Eli Whitney petitioned for a patent for the invention of the saw cotton-gin. His claims were disputed, and he defended them in the State and Federal courts for nearly a generation, obtaining at last a verdict in his favor. Meanwhile the saw-gin had become an established fact, and the planter at last had a machine which enabled him to produce cotton at a cost that would leave him a good profit. The first saw-gin to be run by water-power was erected in 1795 by James Kincaid near Monticello, in Fairfield County, South Carolina. Others were put up near Columbia by Wade Hampton, Sr., in 1797, and in the year following he gathered and ginned from six hundred acres six hundred bales of cotton.
The cotton exportation from the United States increased from four hundred eighty-seven thousand six hundred pounds in 1793 to one million six hundred thousand pounds in 1794, the year in which Whitney's gin was patented. In 1796, a year after he had improved his machine, the production had risen to ten million pounds. In fact, the increased production was so great that the planters began to fear they would overstock the market, and one of them, upon looking at his newly gathered crop, exclaimed: "Well, I have done with cultivation of cotton; there's enough in that gin-house to make stockings for all the people in America." Yet the production of cotton did not advance with that rapidity to which we are now accustomed.
The cotton industry being of secondary importance prior to 1790, information and statistics relative to the amount produced are not available, but within one hundred years, from 1790 to 1890, the production of cotton in the United States increased from five thousand bales to over ten million bales.
The first cotton-mill erected in the United States was built at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1787-1788. This was soon followed by others in various towns along the east border of the country, especially Pawtucket and Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; New Haven and Norwich, Connecticut; New York City; Paterson, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Statesburg, South Carolina. In them carding and spinningwere done by machinery, but the weaving was on hand-looms until 1815, at which date a power-loom mill was started at Waltham, Massachusetts. The use of hand-looms and spinning-wheels for cotton manufacture was common in all parts of the country before the Revolution, especially in the Southern colonies, and these continued to be used by the women in their houses many years after the erection of cotton factories.
Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia when he was met by a disappointment which was an earnest of that long series of adverse events which, with scarcely an exception, attended all his future negotiations in the same State. On his arrival he was informed that Mr. B. had employed another teacher, leaving Whitney entirely without resources or friends, except those whom he had made in the family of General Greene. In these benevolent people, however, his case excited much interest, and Mrs. Greene kindly said to him: "My young friend, you propose studying the law; make my house your home, your room your castle, and there pursue what studies you please." He accordingly began the study of law under that hospitable roof.
Mrs. Greene was engaged in a piece of embroidery in which she employed a peculiar kind of frame called a tambour. She complained that it was badly constructed, and that it tore the delicate threads of her work. Mr. Whitney, eager for an opportunity to oblige his hostess, set himself at work and speedily produced a tambour-frame made on a plan entirely new, which he presented to her. Mrs. Greene and her family were greatly delighted with it, and thought it a wonderful proof of ingenuity.
Not long afterward, a large party of gentlemen came from Augusta and the upper country to visit the family of General Greene, consisting principally of officers who had served under the General in the Revolutionary Army. Among the number were Major Bremen, Forsyth, and Pendleton. They fell into conversation upon the state of agriculture among them, and expressed great regret that there was no means of cleaning the green-seed cotton, or separating it from its seed, since all the lands which were unsuitable for the cultivation of rice would yieldlarge crops of cotton. But until ingenuity could devise some machine which would greatly facilitate the process of cleaning, it was in vain to think of raising cotton for market. Separating one pound of the clean staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman; but the time usually devoted to picking cotton was the evening, after the labor of the field was over. Then the slaves, men, women, and children, were collected in circles with one whose duty it was to rouse the dozing and quicken the indolent. While the company were engaged in this conversation, "Gentlemen," said Mrs. Greene, "apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney—he can make anything." Upon which she conducted them into a neighboring room, and showed them her tambour-frame, and a number of toys which Mr. Whitney had made or repaired for the children. She then introduced the gentlemen to Whitney himself, extolling his genius and commending him to their notice and friendship. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions to mechanical genius; and when they named their object, he replied that he had never seen either cotton or cotton-seed in his life. Mrs. Greene said to one of the gentlemen: "I have accomplished my aim. Mr. Whitney is a very deserving young man, and to bring him into notice was my object. The interest which our friends now feel for him will, I hope, lead to his getting some employment to enable him to prosecute the study of the law."
But a new turn that no one of the company dreamed of had been given to Mr. Whitney's views. It being out of season for cotton in the seed, he went to Savannah and searched among the warehouses and boats until he found a small parcel of it. This he carried home, and communicated his intentions to Mr. Miller, who warmly encouraged him, and assigned him a room in the basement of the house, where he set himself at work with such rude materials and instruments as a Georgia plantation afforded. With these resources, however, he made tools better suited to his purpose, and drew his own wire—of which the teeth of the earliest gins were made—an article which was not at that time to be found in the market of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and Mr. Miller were the only persons ever admitted to his workshop, and the only persons who knew in what way he was employing himself. The many hours he spent in his mysterious pursuits afforded matter of great curiosity and often of raillery to the younger membersof the family. Near the close of the winter, the machine was so nearly completed as to leave no doubt of its success.
Mrs. Greene was eager to communicate to her numerous friends the knowledge of this important invention, peculiarly important at that time, because then the market was glutted with all those articles which were suited to the climate and soil of Georgia, and nothing could be found to give occupation to the negroes, and support to the white inhabitants. This opened suddenly to the planters boundless resources of wealth, and rendered the occupations of the slaves less unhealthy and laborious than they had been before.
Mrs. Greene, therefore, invited to her house gentlemen from different parts of the State, and on the first day after they had assembled she conducted them to a temporary building, which had been erected for the machine, and they saw with astonishment and delight that more cotton could be separated from the seed in one day, by the labor of a single hand, than could be done in the usual manner in the space of many months.
Mr. Whitney might now have indulged in bright reveries of fortune and of fame; but we shall have various opportunities of seeing that he tempered his inventive genius with an unusual share of the calm, considerate qualities of the financier. Although urged by his friends to secure a patent and devote himself to the manufacture and introduction of his machines, he coolly replied that on account of the great expense and trouble which always attend the introduction of a new invention, and the difficulty of enforcing a law in favor of patentees, in opposition to the individual interests of so large a number of persons as would be concerned in the culture of this article, it was with great reluctance that he should consent to relinquish the hopes of a lucrative profession, for which he had been destined, with an expectation of indemnity either from the justice or the gratitude of his countrymen, even should the invention answer the most sanguine anticipations of his friends.
The individual who contributed most to incite him to persevere in the undertaking was Phineas Miller, Esq. Mr. Miller was a native of Connecticut and graduate of Yale College. Like Mr. Whitney, soon after he had completed his education at college, he came to Georgia as a private teacher in the family ofGeneral Greene, and after the decease of the general he became the husband of Mrs. Greene. He had qualified himself for the profession of law, and was a gentleman of cultivated mind and superior talents; but he was of an ardent temperament, and therefore well fitted to enter with zeal into the views which the genius of his friend had laid open to him. He had also considerable funds at command, and proposed to Mr. Whitney to become his joint adventurer, and to be at the whole expense of maturing the invention until it should be patented. If the machine should succeed in its intended operation, the parties agreed, under legal formalities, "that the profits and advantages arising therefrom, as well as all privileges and emoluments to be derived from patenting, making, vending, and working the same, should be mutually and equally shared between them." This instrument bears date May 27, 1793, and immediately afterward they began business, under the firm of Miller & Whitney.
An invention so important to the agricultural interest, and, as has proved, to every department of human industry, could not long remain a secret. The knowledge of it soon spread through the State, and so great was the excitement on the subject that multitudes of persons came from all quarters of the State to see the machine; but it was not deemed safe to gratify their curiosity until the patent-right had been secured. But so determined were some of the populace to possess this treasure that neither law nor justice could restrain them—they broke open the building by night and carried off the machine. In this way the public became possessed of the invention; and before Mr. Whitney could complete his model and secure his patent, a number of machines were in successful operation, constructed with some slight deviation from the original, with the hope of evading the penalty for violating the patent-right.
As soon as the copartnership of Miller & Whitney was formed, Mr. Whitney repaired to Connecticut, where, as far as possible, he was to perfect the machine, obtain a patent, and manufacture and ship for Georgia such a number of machines as would supply the demand.
Within three days after the conclusion of the copartnership, Mr. Whitney having set out for the North, Mr. Miller commenced his long correspondence relative to the cotton-gin. Thefirst letter announces that encroachments upon their rights had already commenced. "It will be necessary," says Mr. Miller, "to have a considerable number of gins made, to be in readiness to send out as soon as the patent is obtained, in order to satisfy the absolute demand, and make people's heads easy on the subject;for I am informed of two other claimants for the honor of the invention of cotton-gins, in addition to those we knew before."
On June 20, 1793, Mr. Whitney presented his petition for a patent to Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State; but the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia—which was then the seat of government—prevented his concluding the business relative to the patent until several months afterward. To prevent being anticipated, he took, however, the precaution to make oath to the invention before the notary public of the city of New Haven, which he did October 28th of the same year.
Mr. Jefferson, who had much curiosity in regard to mechanical inventions, took a peculiar interest in this machine, and addressed to the inventor an obliging letter, desiring further particulars respecting it, and expressing a wish to procure one for his own use. Mr. Whitney accordingly sketched the history of the invention, and of the construction and performances of the machine. "It is about a year," says he, "since I first turned my attention to constructing this machine, at which time I was in the State of Georgia. Within about ten days after my first conception of the plan I made a small though imperfect model. Experiments with this encouraged me to make one on a larger scale; but the extreme difficulty of procuring workmen and proper materials in Georgia prevented my completing the larger one until some time in April last. This, though much larger than my first attempt, is not above one-third as large as the machines may be made with convenience. The cylinder is only two feet two inches in length and six inches diameter. It is turnedby hand, and requires the strength of one man to keep it in constant motion. It is the stated task of one negro to clean fifty weight—I mean fifty pounds after it is separated from the seed—of the green-seed cotton per day." In the same letter Mr. Jefferson assured Mr. Whitney that a patent would be granted as soon as the model was lodged in the Patent Office. In mentioning the favorable notice of Mr. Jefferson to his friend Stebbins, he adds,with characteristic moderation, "I hope, by perseverance, I shall make something of it yet."
At the close of this year (1793) Mr. Whitney was to return to Georgia with his cotton-gins, and Mr. Miller had made arrangements for commencing business immediately after his arrival. The plan was to erect machines in every part of the cotton district and engross the entire business themselves. This was evidently an unfortunate scheme. It rendered the business very extensive and complicated, and, as it did not at once supply the demands of the cotton-growers, it multiplied the inducements to make the machines in violation of the patent. Had the proprietors confined their views to the manufacture of the machines and to the sale of patent-rights, it is probable they would have avoided some of the difficulties with which they afterward had to contend. The prospect of making suddenly an immense fortune by the business of ginning, where every third pound of cotton (worth at that time from twenty-five to thirty-three cents) was their own, presented great and peculiar attractions. Mr. Whitney's return to Georgia was delayed until the following April. The importunity of Mr. Miller's letters, written during the preceding period, urging him to come on, evinces how eager the Georgia planters were to enter the new field of enterprise which the genius of Whitney had laid open to them. Nor did they at first,in general, contemplate availing themselves of the invention unlawfully. But the minds of the more honorable class of planters were afterward deluded by various artifices, set on foot by designing men, with the view of robbing Mr. Whitney of his just right.
One of the greatest difficulties experienced by men of enterprise, at the period under review, was the extreme scarcity of money. In order to carry on the manufacture of cotton-gins, and to make advances in the purchase of cotton and establishments for ginning, to an extent in any degree proportioned to their wishes, Miller & Whitney required a much greater capital than they could command; and the sanguine temperament of Mr. Miller was constantly prompting him to advance in hazards much further than the more cautious spirit of Mr. Whitney would follow. But even the latter found it necessary sometimes to borrow money at an enormous interest. The first loan (for $2000) was made on terms which were deemed at that time peculiarlyfavorable; yet the company were to pay 5 per cent. premium in addition to the lawful interest. This was in 1794. In consequence of the numerous speculations in new lands into which so many of our countrymen were deluded, and the want of confidence created by the very application for a loan, the pressure for money was continually increasing. In 1796 Mr. Whitney applied to a friend in Boston to raise money for him on a loan, and received the following reply: "I applied to one of those vultures called brokers, who are preying on the purse-strings of the industrious, and was informed that he can procure the sum you wish at a premium of 20 per cent. on the following conditions, viz.: You must make over and deposit with him public securities, such as funded stock, bank stock, or any kind of State notes, or Connecticut reservation land certificates, sufficient, at the going prices, fully to secure the debt and premium." In a more embarrassed state of Mr. Miller's private affairs, several years afterward, he paid the enormous interest of 5, 6, and even 7 per cent.per month.
We have said that the loan contracted by Mr. Whitney, in 1794, at a premium of 5 per cent. in addition to the lawful interest, was regarded as peculiarly favorable; this is evident from the fact that, during the same year, Mr. Miller urges him to contract a new loan, if possible, for $3000, at 12 or 14 per cent. provided it could be extended over a year.
In July, 1794, Mr. Whitney was confined by a severe illness, from which he recovered slowly; but his business received a still further interruption from a very fatal sickness, the scarlet fever, which prevailed in New Haven during this year, and which attacked a number of his workmen.
Under all these discouragements Mr. Miller was constantly writing the most urgent letters from Georgia, to press forward the manufacture of machines. "Do not let a deficiency of money, do not let anything," says Mr. Miller, "hinder the speedy construction of the gins. The people of the country are almost running mad for them, and much can be said to justify their importunity. When the present crop is harvested, there will be a real property of at least $50,000, yes, of $100,000, lying useless, unless we can enable the holders to bring it to market. Pray remember that we must have from fifty to one hundred gins between this and another fall, if there are any workmen in New England or in the MiddleStates to make them. In two years we will begin to take long steps up-hill, in the business of patent ginning, fortune favoring."
The general resort of the planters to the cultivation of cotton, and its consequent production in vast quantities, the value of which depended entirely upon the chance of getting it cleaned by the gin, created great uneasiness, which first displayed itself in this pressure upon Miller & Whitney, and afterward afforded great encouragement to the marauders upon the patent-right, who were now becoming numerous and audacious.
Theroller-ginwas at first the most formidable competitor with Whitney's machine. It extricated the seeds by means of rollers, crushing them between revolving cylinders, instead of disengaging them by means of teeth. The fragments of seeds which remained in the cotton rendered its execution much inferior in this respect to Whitney's gin, and it was also much slower in its operation. Great efforts were made, however, to create an impression in favor of its superiority in other respects.
But a still more formidable rival appeared early in the year 1795, under the name of thesaw-gin. It was Whitney's gin, except that the teeth were cut in circular rims of iron, instead of being made of wires, as was the case in the earlier forms of the patent gin. The idea of such teeth had early occurred to Mr. Whitney, as he afterward established by legal proof. But they would have been of no use except in connection with the other parts of his machine, and, therefore, this was a palpable attempt to evade the patent-right, and it was principally in reference to this that the lawsuits were afterward held.
It would be difficult to estimate the full value of Mr. Whitney's labors, without going into a minuteness of detail inconsistent with our limits. Every cotton garment bears the impress of his genius, and the ships that transported it across the waters were the heralds of his fame, and the cities that have risen to opulence by the cotton trade must attribute no small share of their prosperity to the inventor of the cotton-gin. We have before us the declaration of the late Mr. Fulton, that Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney—we would add Fulton to the number—were the three men who did most for mankind, of any of their contemporaries; and in the sense in which he intended it, the remark is probably true.