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 agricultural commercial product. The history of the domestication of cotton is very complex and is not known exactly. Several isolated civilizations in both the Old and New World independently domesticated and converted the cotton into fabric. All the same tools were invented to work it also, including combs, bows, hand spindles, and primitive looms. Cotton has been cultivated and used by humans for thousands of years, with evidence of cotton fabrics dating back to ancient civilizations in India, Egypt, and Peru. The cotton industry played a significant role in the development of the American economy, with the production of cotton being the major source of income for slave owners in the southern United States prior to the Civil War, while the transport of said cotton to mills in the Northern United States and Europe and beyond became a mainstay of American shipping. Today, cotton remains an important crop worldwide, with China and India being the largest producers.
Etymology The word "cotton" has Arabic origins, derived from the Arabic word قطن (qutn or qutun). This was the usual word for cotton in medieval Arabic. The word entered the Romance languages in the mid-12th century, and English a century later. Cotton fabric was known to the ancient Romans as an import but cotton was rare in the Romance-speaking lands until imports from the Arabic-speaking lands in the later medieval era at transformatively lower prices.
Early history The oldest cotton textiles were found in graves and city ruins of civilizations from dry climates, where the fabrics did not decay completely.
Americas
The oldest cotton fabric has been found in Huaca Prieta in Peru, dated to about 6000 BCE. It is here that Gossypium barbadense is thought to have been domesticated at its earliest. Some of the oldest cotton bolls were discovered in a cave in Tehuacán Valley, Mexico, and were dated to approximately 5500 BCE, but some doubt has been cast on these estimates. Seeds and cordage dating to about 2500 BCE have been found in Peru. By 3000 BCE cotton was being grown and processed in Mexico, and Arizona.
Kingdom of Kush Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum Linnaeus) may have been domesticated around 5000 BCE in eastern Sudan near the Middle Nile Basin region, where cotton cloth was being produced. The cultivation of cotton and the knowledge of its spinning and weaving in Meroë reached a high level in the 4th century BC. The export of textiles was one of the sources of wealth for Meroë. Aksumite King Ezana boasted in his inscription that he destroyed large cotton plantations in Meroë during his conquest of the region.
Near East Microremains of cotton fibers, some dyed, have been found at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley dated 5,200 BCE. They may be the remnants of ancient clothing, fabric containers, or cordage. Researches suggest the cotton might come from wild species in South Asia, and trade with the Indus Valley.
Indian subcontinent The earliest archaeological discovery, a number of mineralised cotton threads, recovered from the center of a string of eight copper beads, found in a grave, dated to the first half of the 6th millennium BC, at Mehrgarh, Kachi, Pakistan, demonstrates use of wild or cultivated cotton fibres, was known, millennia before evidence of cotton cultivation, and textiles, in the 4th millennia BC, Indus Valley Civilisation. Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, mentions Indian cotton in the 5th century BCE as "a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep", which suggests that the fiber was not yet known in Greece at the time. When Alexander the Great invaded India, his troops started wearing cotton clothes that were more comfortable than their previous woolen ones. Strabo, another Greek historian, mentioned the vividness of Indian fabrics, and Arrian told of Indian–Arab trade of cotton fabrics in 130 CE.
Middle Ages
Eastern world Handheld roller cotton gins had been used in India since the 6th century, and was then introduced to other countries from there. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.
Western world Cotton entered Europe (the "West") through Africa and the Mediterranean; it had been used in Sudan for thousands of years and Egyptians grew and spun cotton from at least 700 CE onward. Cotton was not a common fabric in Europe at any point until the 18th century, though it did see occasional import and use during the late Middle Ages, often in blends with other fibers. Confusingly, from the 14th to 19th centuries, "cotton" was also a term used for woolen fabrics of a certain weave or texture, and therefore has confused past generations of scholars. Cotton manufacture was introduced to Europe during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. The knowledge of cotton weaving was spread to northern Italy in the 12th century, when Sicily was conquered by the Normans, and consequently to the rest of Europe. The spinning wheel, introduced to Europe c. 1350, improved the speed of cotton spinning. By the 15th century, Venice, Antwerp, and Haarlem were important ports for cotton trade, and the sale and transportation of cotton fabrics had become profitable. Christopher Columbus, in his explorations of the Bahamas and Cuba, found natives wearing cotton ("the costliest and handsomest... cotton mantles and sleeveless shirts embroidered and painted in different designs and colours"), a fact that may have contributed to his incorrect belief that he had landed on the coast of India.
Early modern period
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
