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The United States exports more cotton than any other country, though it ranks third in total production, behind China and India. [1] Almost all of the cotton fiber growth and production occurs in the Southern United States and the Western United States, dominated by Texas, California, Arizona, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
The history of cotton can be traced from its domestication, through the important role it played in the history of India, the British Empire, and the United States, to its continuing importance as a crop and commodity. The history of the domestication of cotton is very complex and is not known exactly. [1]
There are four commercially grown species of cotton, all domesticated in antiquity: Gossypium hirsutum – upland cotton, native to Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and southern Florida (90% of world production) [3]
After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 ...
Short-staple cotton became the prime commodity crop of the developing Deep South, and King Cotton was the basis of southern wealth in the antebellum years. This cotton in the early 21st century represents about 95% of U.S. production. Among the earliest planters of Sea Island cotton in North America was an Englishman, Francis Levett. Other ...
The main prewar agricultural products of the Confederate States were cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, with hogs, cattle, grain and vegetable plots. Pre-war agricultural production estimated for the Southern states is as follows (Union states in parentheses for comparison): 1.7 million horses (3.4 million), 800,000 mules (100,000), 2.7 million dairy cows (5 million), 5 million sheep (14 million ...
Cotton was at first a small-scale crop in the South. Cotton farming boomed following the improvement of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. [59] It was 50 times more productive at removing the seeds than with a roller. Soon, large cotton plantations, based on slave labor, expanded in the richest lands from the Carolinas westward to Texas.
With the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1794, American slaveholders had the means to make cotton production significantly more profitable. The era of King Cotton was underway by the early 1800s to such an extent that by the mid-19th century, southern slave plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton. The introduction of the ...