Sic Semper GOP

[kandrathe]

Ah. Well, then, the hole in that hypothesis would be that the US Civil War didn't even start until 4 years after the rebellion in India.

Wars just don't up and start one day. It takes a long period of being ticked off at one another first. Cotton was certainly a force in the US civil war, and Britain's huge appetite for the raw material created the impetus for westward expansion by the south, and the need to extend the slave culture to the new territories. It seems also that many actions by the East India company in India, also ticked off the population there. Of the many listed, the one related here was forcing the people to import cotton garments made in England rather than allowing them to make their own cloth with local cotton. The confederacy gambled heavily on Britain entering into the war to ensure their supply of cotton. Had they done so, the south would probably have won the war.

[Jester]

Sure. But the hypothesis that Britain switching back to US cotton *after* the Civil War could not possibly have any bearing on why there was a revolt in India eight years earlier.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Sure. But the hypothesis that Britain switching back to US cotton *after* the Civil War could not possibly have any bearing on why there was a revolt in India eight years earlier.

The Civil War also started rumblings in 1857, on January 15th, "Massachusetts holds a state disunion convention called by Thomas Higginson, Frank Bird, and Thomas Earle claiming that "...the Union was a failure as being a hopeless attempt to unite under one government two antagonistic systems of society which diverge more widely every year."

Meanwhile, over in India, "As a result, the dissatisfaction against the British was not confined to the agricultural communities alone. By bankrupting the nobility and the urban middle class - demand for many local goods was almost eliminated. At the same time local producers were confronted with unfair competition from British imports. The consequences of this were summarized by the rebel prince Feroz Shah, in his August 1857 proclamation: "the Europeans by the introduction of English articles into India have thrown the weavers, the cotton dressers, the carpenters, the blacksmiths and the shoe-makers and others out of employ and have engrossed their occupations, so that every description of native artisan has been reduced to beggary."

Or, in summary, for that time period up until Gandhi, "The Lancashire textile boom could never have taken hold without the protection of high tariff walls against the world’s great textile workshop in India. Indian hand weavers, whose quality was high and wages low, had been the centre of world production for centuries. But British protectionism, in combination with the extension of imperial power through the East India Company (an early example of a ‘public-private’ partnership), changed the rules of the game. British policy transformed India from an exporter of textiles to a supplier of raw cotton for Lancashire factories. The tactics were brutal. They included smashing the hands and cutting off the thumbs of Indian weavers, while implementing a system of usurious taxes favouring cotton production – sometimes provoking famine in the process."

I'm not simply looking at the flow of cotton from India, Egypt, or the Confederacy to Lancashire, but generally the result of what happens worldwide when "human rights" are reserved for the ruling class. Undoing the golden triangle of the British empire cost Americans during our civil war, and India during their struggle for independence as well. Cotton (sugar being the other one), as the prime commodity, is a common denominator, over the same periods of time.

"By the 1840s, India was no longer capable of supplying the vast quantities of cotton fibers needed by mechanized British factories, while shipping bulky, low-price cotton from India to Britain was time-consuming and expensive. This, coupled with the emergence of American cotton as a superior type (due to the longer, stronger fibers of the two domesticated native American species, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense), encouraged British traders to purchase cotton from plantations in the United States and the Caribbean. This was also much cheaper as it was produced by unpaid slaves. By the mid 19th century, "King Cotton" had become the backbone of the southern American economy. In the United States, cultivating and harvesting cotton became the leading occupation of slaves.

During the American Civil War, American cotton exports slumped due to a Union blockade on Southern ports, also because of a strategic decision by the Confederate government to cut exports, hoping to force Britain to recognize the Confederacy or enter the war, prompting the main purchasers of cotton, Britain and France to turn to Egyptian cotton. British and French traders invested heavily in cotton plantations and the Egyptian government of Viceroy Isma'il took out substantial loans from European bankers and stock exchanges. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's annexation by the British Empire in 1882."

So, quite a trail of misery just tracking the trail of one commodity and it's market.

[--Pete]

Hi,

The subject line says all I care to say about your speculation on the Sepoy Revolt. One additional nit -- and I don't think you said it, but I can't tell for sure where you're quoting and where you're expressing in your own words:

This was also much cheaper as it was produced by unpaid slaves.

This is actually misleading. While slaves were not paid a wage, they were supplied with food, clothing, and shelter. They were supported both during the growing season and between growing seasons. They were also supported when too young or too old to work. Thus there was a non-zero cost for the slave labor. It was this cost that was driving slavery out, most crops didn't pay enough to support the population. We have documents from Jefferson, Washington, and others of the founding fathers where they speak of losing money on their plantations and having to supplement their income in some other way.

When king cotton came along, it gave the slave owners a crop that would support the slaves and make the owners wealthy. However, the cost of maintaining slaves could still be higher than the wages paid to workers in, say, India. Especially since those workers would only be paid when working. Young, old, pregnant, off-season? They were on their own.

None of this should be taken as an argument in favor of or excusing slavery. Indeed, the existence of slavery in a nation who's first official document states, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." is an affront to logic, intellect, and conscience. However, to imply that slave labor had no associated cost because slaves weren't paid wages is wrong.

-Pete

[kandrathe]

This is actually misleading.

I agree with your assessment. That statement was from a paragraph I extracted from various on-line encyclopedic histories. These days we've exchanged real chains, for the chains of government run systems where it is "society" that is responsible for our children, elderly, and infirm. The question comes up in my mind pretty often, "Am I free?" I can still answer, "Some what".

"Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains." — Alexis de Tocqueville

[LavCat]

We've had an occasional bad apple in the barrel of police, but I don't ever recall any rogue prosecutors.

Funny that this topic came up tonight again at work (don't look at me). My coworker still thinks the guy is still alive somewhere.

Here are some stories from the NY Times.

[kandrathe]

We've had an occasional bad apple in the barrel of police, but I don't ever recall any rogue prosecutors.

Funny that this topic came up tonight again at work (don't look at me). My coworker still thinks the guy is still alive somewhere.

Here are some stories from the NY Times.

We have our share of corruption, but it seems to be our business leaders who are succumbing to it rather than our public officials. I used to work for one of the convicted guys back in the early 1990's, before the incidents they are now being convicted were performed, but it makes me wonder sometimes. I wonder how many businesses are corrupt, and what percentage of these "white collar" crimes get caught. For example, the trouble that Hecker is in is only because of his bankruptcy. Had he been able to carry on his racket, no one would have been the wiser to his brand of fraud.