Cotton
Fiber of a Global Community
W
hen one hears the strain of Daniel Emmett’s plaintiff melody that recalls living in one place but being in another, “The Land of Cotton” immediately comes to mind. He wrote that “early on one frosty morn he was born in the land of cotton.” Most assuredly, the Southern states were roundly identified for years with fields of cotton stalks and blossoms that exploded into white balls of puffy fibers that could easily be spun into all sorts of creations. Geographically, Cherokee County in Alabama was easily identifiable as a distinct part of this region where cotton was prevalent—and a way of life.
Cotton Comes to America It’s not the first we know of cotton. Truth is, cotton got its start a while back. For example, scientists searching caves in Mexico found bits of cotton bolls and pieces of cotton cloth proven to be at
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least 7,000 years old. Amazingly, these bits of ancient history were very much like the cotton being grown in Alabama today. In Pakistan, cotton was grown and woven into cloth 3,000 years BC and Egyptians in the Nile River Valley were making and wearing cotton clothing then as well. Arab merchants brought cotton cloth to Europe about 800 AD. Columbus found cotton growing in the Bahamas in 1492, and it was planted in Florida in l556 and in Virginia in 1607. It was mostly by hand, but in England in 1730 it was being spun lightning-fast by machines.
American Ingenuity and a Prolific Pest Two events in cotton’s history were as notable as lightning strikes: Eli Whitney of Massachusetts invented the cotton
gin in 1793. This machine could do the work of preparing fibers ten times faster than by hand. Result: The value of the U.S. Cotton Crop rose from $150,000 to more than $8 million as soon as the gin was built into the cycle. (“Gin” is short for “Engine”).
The other lightning bolt virtually destroyed the American crop in the early 1900’s. A tiny insect made its way into Texas from Mexico and rapidly spread all across the South. It was the Boll Weevil. So evil was the Weevil that it nearly wiped out the cotton business before scientists could find a way to control it—forcing hundreds of farmers to sell their land or grow other crops and agricultural commodities. Enterprise, Alabama honors the Boll Weevil for causing the diversification of southern agriculture. A statue stands today in the heart of the city citing the true value of this infamous insect.