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Edges of Empire

KNW 2399: Edges of Empire

King Cotton?

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The_Cotton_Market_Bombay (1)

http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/eaa/id/759

The title of this photograph is “The Cotton Market, Bombay.” The creators are William Johnson and William Henderson. William Johnson was an Englishmen living in India who held multiple offices in the government including employment as a clerk and as an assistant the general department of Bombay. With various attributers he published multiple volumes of photographs on western India.

The first observation is the overwhelming amount of cotton that is captured in this image. It is clear in the photograph that India was still producing an enormous amount of cotton for the British Empire in this period of time. Secondly, the people themselves captured in this image are immensely revealing. The group of cotton growers are all Indian men who appear to be somewhere in the middle class of Indian society. The last interesting observation is the actual title of the photograph, “Cotton Market.” If one did not know the title of the image one would assume that this was some sort of weighing or processing station rather than a market.

The photograph answers the question of how much and how effective Indian planters were at growing cotton. India was an efficient market that produced a great deal. This begs the question on whether India or the antebellum south produced more cotton? Could Indian planters compete with the American south when the planters in Virginia utilized slave labor? The planters or transporters depicted appear to be in the middle class because they seem to be well dressed and gainfully employed. No English are in this image because they clearly were not involved in the actual production of cotton, although they reaped the large amount of benefits, which came from the lucrative trade. Lastly, the title of “Cotton Market,” is fascinating because it does not look like anything is being sold. This would leave one to assume that these planters are not getting fair compensation for their product. Did the British set the price for this cotton? Or were they not allowed to sell to local markets?

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