British Imperialism in India: Cotton and the Creation of a Core and Periphery

Cotton Where was most cotton produced before the U.S. Civil War? Who purchased most of that cotton? What was it used for?

During the Civil War ( ), the South couldn’t export cotton to Great Britain. The factory owners in Great Britain were desperate to obtain cotton. How did the British government respond to this situation?

Question 2: What does this graph show? Table 1: Cotton Exports from India, Egypt, and Brazil, 1860–1866, in Million Pounds. Sources: Government of India, Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of British India and Forign Countries vol. 5 (Calcutta, 1872); vol. 9 (Calcutta, 1876); Roger Owen, Cotton and the Egyptian Economy, 1820–1914 (Oxford, 1969), 90; Estatisticas historica do Brasil (Rio de Jeneiro, 1990), 346.

Subsistence farming vs. cash crop More cotton = less food What might be the consequences of this shift?

Drop in food production + El Niño weather patterns = Famine

Estimated Famine Deaths in India YearNumber of deaths million million Total million Statistics from Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2001), p. 7.

De-Industrialization in India India’s Share of World Manufacturing Output Statistics from Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2001), p %17.6%1.7%

Core – industrialized nations like Great Britain, America, Germany, and Japan Periphery (Peripheral) – countries that provided raw materials to the industrialized nations; very slow to begin industrializing themselves Core (Great Britain) Periphery (India, Egypt)

Where are the core countries?

“Millions died, not outside the “modern world system,” but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures.” - Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts

Definitions Sovereignty: (noun) the state of being politically independent; having independent control as a nation (Glossary Definition) sovereign (adj.) A country that does not let others “boss it around” or rule over it” (informal def.)

CoreEdgePeriphery

Were these countries core, edge or periphery by 1910? Germany France Austria India United States Great Britain Japan Egypt China Russia Mexico South Africa Nigeria Others?

Editorial: Call for Indian Independence! An editorial is an opinion piece written for a newspaper or magazine. (YEAR: 1885) (See p.361) Write an editorial for an Indian newspaper calling for independence from British rule. Guiding Questions: 1)What are your major complaints about the British? (Be specific; use specific information & statistics) 2) How do you feel toward the British? 3) Why should the Indian people risk their lives to break free from Great Britain? (Length: aprox. ¾ page, neatly hand written)