Sea Island Cotton

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Two kinds of cotton were produced in the United States before the Civil War. Long staple grew in the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia. Short staple was better adapted to drier upland areas of the lower South.

Both were members of the Malvaceae that emerged in the Eocene in South America and Australia. [1] Mallow pollens appeared in Africa during the Oligocene. [2] About 12.5 million years ago, the cotton genus, [3] Gossypium, emerged in Africa, and one lineage floated across the Pacific to western Mexico by 10 million years ago. [4] The Miocene climate was cold in those centuries and sea levels had dropped. Seeds of one modern cotton species were still viable after three years in sea water according to a team led by Jonathan Wendel. [5]

Seeds from Africa took another ocean voyage one to two million years ago [6] during the Ice Age when sea levels again were low. This time, the lineage that had developed long seed hairs [7] in Africa or Asia landed in the New World where it mated with local plants to produce progeny with double the number of chromosomes. [8]

Today four species share the long threads, all derived from a single genetic change: Indian cotton (arboreum), which was domesticated by 2300 bc in the Indus valley; Levant (herbaceum); Mexican (hirsutum), which was being cultivated in the Tehuacan valley around 3000 bc, and Caribbean (barbadense), [9] which was being used for fishing nets on the Peruvian coast about 3500 bc. [10] The last moved from there to the Caribbean [11] where it was being farmed for export to Hispañola by the Arawak when Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492. [12]

Cotton seeds were covered by hairs that probably developed to deter predators. When they dried after the seed pod opened, they maintained their round shape. The seed parent of the American tetraploids developed additional long hairs that dried into flat, twisting ribbons that attached to one another. That made them spinnable, [13] although the James Hargreaves jenny of 1764 didn’t produce a strong enough thread for existing looms. Richard Arkwright’s water frame of 1771 was the one that created stronger yarns. [14]

Colonists began experimenting with cotton as a commercial crop to support England’s mills before the American Revolution. Its introduction into South Carolina and Georgia went through three phases: establishing the crop could grow, proving it could make a profit, and adapting to the demands of the new market.

Beaufort, South Carolina, historians noted several people had been given credit for being the first to plant the long-staple Caribbean cotton. Andrew Turnball and his overseer, John Earle, grew some kind of cotton, possibly Arabian since they migrated from the Mediterranean to the newly British possession of East Florida in 1763. Andrew’s son Nicholas then grew what became Sea Island cotton near the Savannah river in Georgia in 1787. [15]

Francis Levant moved from Italy to East Florida, then to Georgia where he shipped 10,000 pounds of cotton from Savannah to London in 1791. [16] Two years later James King was exporting cotton from Georgia that had been ginned by a roller mill. His father-in-law, Kinsey Burden had experimented with cotton upriver from Savannah in 1777. [17]

Sea Island cotton was introduced elsewhere by outsiders who were aware of economic developments in England, or who had no emotional commitment to rice. William Elliott introduced it to Hilton Head Island in 1790. [18] His great-grandfather had settled in Albemarle county, North Carolina, then moved to Charleston [19] where he married into the Barnwell family. [20] His grandfather made the move to Beaufort, [21] where the Barnwells became "to sea island cotton what the Heywards were to rice." [22]

Ezekiel Donnell suggested 1791 was the first year English mills began to rely on sea island cotton. Three-fourths of the supply came from South Carolina, and the rest from Georgia. In earlier years "Great Britain obtained her supplies of cotton from the West Indies, South America, and the countries around the eastern parts of the Mediterranean." [23]

The next year prices more than doubled when wars with Napoléon began to impact shipping across the Atlantic. [24] Others started planting cotton rather than rice. Ebenezer Coffin introduced long-staple cotton on Saint Helena island. [25] His immigrant ancestor, Tristram, moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1642 [26] just as the English Civil War was beginning. The family became merchants who remained loyal during the American Revolution. [27] After the war, Ebenezer married a woman who may have had kinship ties with people in Charleston. [28] He began clearing land for Coffin Point in 1800, and had a working plantation in 1803. [29]

Instead of a cotton gin, they used a roller mill invented by Joseph Eve. The Philadelphia-born Loyalist began buying land in the Bahamas in 1788, and moved there in 1795. He improved the local roller mill to remove black-seeds from long-staple cotton by converting it to wind, cattle, or water power. David Moody said his customers included Pierce Butler and John Couper on Saint Simons island off the coast of Georgia. He sold his island plantation and moved to Charleston to manufacture gins in 1800. When his factory burned in 1805, he moved inland to the fall line at Augusta, Georgia. [30]

End Notes
1. Jonathan F. Wendel, Curt L. Brubaker, and Tosak Seelanan. "The Origin and Evolution of Gossypium. 1–18 in Physiology of Cotton. Edited by James McD. Stewart, Derrick M. Oosterhuis, James J. Heitholt, and Jackson R. Mauney. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2010. 2.

2. Wendel. 2.
3. Wendel. 3.
4. Wendel. 10.
5. Wendel. 11.
6. Wendel. 12.
7. Wendel. 13.
8. Wendel. 12.
9. Wendel. 13.
10. Wendel. 16.
11. Wendel. 17.

12. William F. Keegan and Corinne L. Hofman. The Caribbean before Columbus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. No page numbers in on-line edition. Arawak were discussed with MC-6 site on Middle Caicos island.

13. Wendel. 13.

14. "Sir Richard Arkwright." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 20 July 1998; last updated 19 December 2018. He was mentioned in the post 19 May 2019.

"Sir Richard Arkwright (1732 - 1792)." British Broadcasting Company website.

Wikipedia. "Richard Arkwright."

15. Lawrence Sanders Rowland, Alexander Moore, and George C. Rogers. The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina: 1514–1861. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. 277–278. E. J. Donnell reported Alexander Bissell was the first to export sea island cotton from Saint Simons Island in 1788. [31]

16. Donnell said Frank Leavet originally lived in Jamaica where he lived "in a distressed situation." Patrick Walsh recommended he move to Georgia and sent him "a large quantity of various seeds of Jamaica." He planted the ones he recognized, and emptied the bag containing Pernambuco cotton seeds on a dung heap when he needed the bag itself. It was thus he learned it would grow in 1789. [32]

17. Rowland. 278.

18. Rowland, 280, and E. J. Donnell. Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton. New York: James Sutton and Company, 1872. 10.

19. Phoebe R. Leverling. "Thomas Elliott." Genealogy website. On Elliott’s great-grandfather.

20. John Barnwell migrated to South Carolina in 1701 where he served as a military leader against the the Tuscarora and the Spanish in Florida. [33]

21. "Mary Elliott (Gibbes)." Gini website. 1 December 2016. On Elliott’s great-grandmother.
22. Rowland. 280.
23. Donnell. 51.

24. Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta reported the price paid per pound in 1740 as 9 pence. It jumped to 23 pence in 1792–1793, fell to 14 pence in 1802–1803, rose to 20 pence in the War of 1812, then returned to 9 pence per pound in 1822–1824. [34]

25. Rowland. 281.

26. W. S. Appleton. Gatherings toward a Genealogy of the Coffin Family. Boston: David Clapp and Son, 1896. 3.

Wikipedia. "Haverhill, Massachusetts."

27. James H. Stark. The Loyalists of Massachusetts. Boston: W. B. Clarke Company, 1910. 234.

28. Ebenzer’s cousin, John Coffin, served with Cornwallis in Charleston. [35] John married Ann Mathews from Saint Johns Island. [36] Ebenezer subsequently married Mary Mathews in Boston. [37] She may have been a cousin to Ann. [38]

29. Rowland. 281.

30. David L. Moody. "Dr. Joseph Eve." Ancestry website. His primary source was Lydia Austin Parrish. "Records of Some Southern Loyalists." Manuscript in Harvard Library’s Houghton Library.

31. Donnell. 44.
32. Donnell. 48.
33. Wikipedia. "John Barnwell (Colonist)."

34. Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta. "Cotton Textiles and the Great Divergence: Lancashire, India and Shifting Competitive Advantage, 1600-1850." Global Economic History Network conference, Utrecht, 23–25 June 2005. 38.

35. Stark. 236.
36. Stark. 237.
37. Appleton. 45.

38. Sally Pamelia Dobson. "Benjamin Matthews." Geni website. Last updated 20 January 2017. On father of Mary Coffin, son of Benjamin.

"Benjamin Mathewes." Geni website. Last updated 14 November 2014. On father of Benjamin, son of Anthony.

"Anthony Mathewes." Ancestry website. On father of Benjamin and grandfather of Ann.