Comment on "B-b-but don't you need our cotton???"
PugJesus@piefed.social 1 day ago
Explanation: In the US Civil War, a major component of the secessionist pro-slavery South was that the European powers - especially France and the UK, which were major purchasers of Southern cotton - would intervene on the side of the South in some manner. With Southern ports blockaded by the Northern navy, Europe was starved of cotton, vital for clothing and industry, making their intervention necessary! Only a matter of time, eh, fellow Southern gentlemen?
However, slavery was deeply unpopular in the UK and France at the time, despite their reliance on Southern cotton. Both the UK and France had elites who were in favor of the South winning the Civil War, but were reliant enough on popular opinion that they could not risk outright support of the South without getting ousted from government. The UK - a parliamentary democracy - more than France - a strongman dictatorship, effectively, under Napoleon III at the time.
Once the North made the Emancipation Proclamation, establishing the fight as not merely the South supporting slavery, but the North, furthermore, explicitly coming out against it, public opinion in France and the UK became so pro-North that all hope of recognition became a distant memory as the North ground the South into dust over the next two years of war.
On top of that, the UK just started growing cotton en masse in Egypt and India in response to the war.
jqubed@lemmy.world 1 day ago
IIRC, cotton was more suited for cultivation in Egypt and other areas anyways, only ever marginally suited for growth in the southern USA. With cotton production starting in these other, better-suited regions during the war, the market share of cotton from the South never recovered to pre-war levels. I think I’ve read that cotton cultivation might’ve disappeared from the U.S. altogether if not for the efforts of universities and industry groups like Cotton, Inc. to develop varieties that grow better in the region.
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 23 hours ago
Cotton grows well in tropical and subtropical areas. That includes the southern US. American cotton originally displaced cotton from India and Africa because Americas cotton plants produced longer stronger fibers. More relevant to the reduction of cotton were the introduction of synthetic fibers from the 1920s on with rayon, nylon, and polyester fibers being cheaper and easier to generate and process with less or no seasonal effect.
Mexico, the Caribbean, Florida and Central America are still the main producers of global cotton supply.