In 1775 the Provincial Congress of South Carolina recommended the
cultivation of cotton, and in the same year a similar enactment was
passed by the Virginia Assembly, which declared that "all persons having
proper land ought to cultivate and raise a quantity of hemp, flax, and
cotton, not only for the use of their own families, but to spare to
others on moderate terms." This legislation no doubt was suggested on
account of the changed relations of the colonies with Great Britain.
In 1786 Thomas Jefferson, in a letter, says: "The four southernmost
States make a great deal of cotton. Their poor are almost entirely
clothed with it in winter and summer. In winter they wear shirts of it
and outer clothing of cotton and wool mixed. In summer their shirts are
linen, but the outer clothing cotton. The dress of the women is almost
entirely of cotton, manufactured by themselves, except the richer class,
and even many of these wear a great deal of homespun cotton. It is as
well manufactured as the calicoes of Europe."
At the convention at Annapolis in 1786 James Madison expressed the
conviction that from the experience already had "from the garden
practice in Talbot County, Maryland, and the circumstances of the same
kind abounding in Virginia, there was no reason to doubt that the United
States would one day become a great cotton-producing country." This year
Sea Island cotton-seed was introduced into Georgia, the seed being sent
from the Bahama Islands to Governor Tatnall, William Spaulding, Richard
Leake, and Alexander Pisset, of that State. The cotton adapted itself to
the climate, and every successive year from 1787 saw long-staple cotton
extending itself along the shores of South Carolina and Georgia.
According to Thomas Spaulding, the first planter who attempted cotton
culture on a large scale was Richard Leake, of Savannah, but the editor
of _Niles Register_ (1824) says that Nichol Turnbull, a native of
Smyrna, was the first planter who cultivated cotton upon a scale for
exportation. His residence was at Deptford Hall, three miles from
Savannah, where he died in 1824.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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