American Civil War
Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Displacing Indigenous Peoples"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
The American Civil War (1861–65) was fought between the northern and southern states of the USA. The southern slave states grew most of the cotton used by Britain's mills, and the war cut that supply. British buyers turned to India, setting off a cotton boom, a sudden rise in demand and prices, in the Bombay Deccan. When the war ended, demand fell. Many Deccan peasants were left in deep debt.
Example
Britain's raw cotton imports from America fell from over 2,000,000 bales in 1861 to 55,000 bales in 1862. By 1862, over 90 per cent of Britain's cotton imports came from India. Moneylenders gave Deccan ryots (peasant cultivators) easy loans to grow cotton. After the slump, that debt helped spark the Deccan Riots of 1875.
Don't confuse with
- American War of Independence (1775–83): this was the war in which the American colonies broke away from Britain. It had nothing to do with India's cotton boom.
Related concepts
- Surat
- Gomastha
- System of advances
- Deindustrialisation
- Cotton Supply Association
- Manchester Cotton Company
- Bombay Gazette