Cotton

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Cotton

Cotton, a plant native to most of the warmer regions on earth, including the tropical and semitropical regions of the Americas. It was cultivated and woven into cloth by all three of the great pre-Columbian civilizations: the Mayas, the Aztecs, and the Incas. Long before European contact with the Americas, cotton had been introduced into Europe from the Middle East, and consequently was not particularly impressive to the newly arrived Spanish conquerors. Nevertheless, cultivation of cotton continued after contact, and contributed to a cottage textile industry in Spanish and Portuguese America during the colonial period.

The mechanization of the spinning and weaving processes during the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century increased production of cotton textiles enormously. In the mid-1700s both the Portuguese colony of Brazil and the British Caribbean islands exported large amounts of cotton fiber for the rapidly growing British textile industy. By 1800, however, the United States had replaced the Caribbean islands as the major transatlantic source of cotton, thanks to Eli Whitney's cotton gin.

After independence, during the middle and late nineteenth century (the liberal/positivist period), many Latin American countries, particularly Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, attempted to develop their own textile industries, and in conjunction with this effort they expanded cotton production. In addition, cotton became a very profitable export commodity for Latin American countries after the U.S. cotton industry was destroyed by the Civil War. By the end of World War I, textile manufacturing had been initiated in most Latin American countries, and most countries were producing cotton for domestic use, for export, or for both. Because cotton was intimately connected to industrialization and nascent capitalism, it produced a semiproletarian agricultural work force in many places. Accordingly, wage-earning cotton workers were often among the first agricultural laborers to organize unions.

Cotton again became important in the 1960s, when the United States and its Alliance for Progress encouraged the stimulation of nontraditional agricultural exports in Latin America. Cotton was a natural choice for Central Americans because improved pesticide technology made their Pacific coastal plain ideal for the crop. In Central America, access to credit and other incentives were available for those who would produce and export raw cotton. Consequently, Central American cotton production increased by 500 percent between 1961 and 1973. By 1977, Central America was the third largest producer of cotton for the world market, behind the United States and Egypt.

Vastly increased cotton production in Central America had disastrous economic effects for the poorest agricultural workers. Land that had previously been dedicated to subsistence farming of corn was turned over to cotton. This displacement contributed to the proletarianization process that was taking place among agricultural workers in much of Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately for the peasants who had previously inhabited this cropland, cotton did not provide stable employment for wage laborers. Because of the mechanized nature of modern cotton production, labor demands are relatively low for much of the growing season. Consequently, most of these newly proletarianized agricultural workers were forced to migrate.

Cotton, both as an export commodity and as an input for domestic textile production, continues to be an important Latin American industry. Cotton has also been a source of trade tension between the United States and Latin American countries. In 2007, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that U.S. subsidies constituted an unfair trade practice. Consequently, the WTO allowed Brazil to raise tariffs on select U.S. products in retaliation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Romero Loza, Algodón en Bolivia, 2d ed. (1978).

Bertha Dodge, Cotton: The Plant That Would Be King (1984).

Forrest D. Colburn and Silvio De Franco, "Privilege, Production, and Revolution: The Case of Nicaragua," Comparative Politics 17, no. 3 (1985): 277-290.

Robert G. Williams, Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America (1986).

Barry Carr, "The Mexican Communist Party and Agrarian Mobilization in the Laguna, 1920–1940: A Worker-Peasant Alliance," Hispanic American Historical Review 67, no. 3 (1987): 371-404.

Dawn Keremitsis, The Cotton Textile Industry in Porfiriato Mexico (1987).

Michael J. Gonzales, "The Rise of Cotton Tenant Farming in Peru, 1890–1920: The Condor Valley," Agricultural History 65, no. 1 (1991): 51-71.

Additional Bibliography

Cueto, Marcos, and Jorge Lossio. Innovación en la agricultura: Fermín Tangüis y el algodón en el Perú. Lima: Universidad del Pacifico, Centro de Investigación, 1999.

Gómez-Galvarriato, Aurora, ed. La industria textil en México. Mexico City: Instituto Mora, Colegio de Michoacán: Colegio de México: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-UNAM, 1999.

Rachel A. May

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture