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Indian Cotton
Indian cotton (Gossypium arboreum, Gossypium herbaceum, etc.) was domesticated and long cultivated in the South Asian subcontinent, one of the earlie…
Timeline
- c. -5000–-500Indus River Valley and Deccan Plateau · IndiaSouth Asian peoples domesticated perennial and annual cotton varieties, developed spindle and spinning wheel techniques, and produced cotton cloth and yarn, becoming an important handicraft of the Indus River Valley and later civilizations.
- 1200–1700Gujarat and the Malabar Coast · GujaratBy the 1460s, fine Indian cotton cloth (such as that produced in Surat) was exported in large quantities via Indian Ocean trade routes to the Persian Gulf, East Africa, and Red Sea ports; South Asian polities such as Vijayanagara relied on cotton handicrafts for trade income.
- 1700–1900Americas and South Asian colonial cotton regions · South AsiaEuropean colonial powers introduced American sea-island cotton to South Asia and established plantation economies; cotton became a global commodity, profoundly transforming South Asian rural economies and labor structures.
Sources
- Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber — Stephen Yafa (2005)
- The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present — Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik (1999)