By feeding their machinery with cheap cotton grown by enslaved people on American plantations, European manufacturers were eventually able to make more Madras handkerchiefs for lower prices than South Indian weavers. In 1824 it was reported that the manufacturing of the city of Montpelier, France was 'entirely confined to Madras handkerchiefs', which were traded internationally alongside Madras made in Britain, Switzerland, Holland and other European nations. When the American civil war interrupted the supply of American cotton, manufacturers turned to the colonised fields of British India for their raw cotton supply until American cotton supplies were re-established. This map shows the shift in supply from America (blue) to India (orange) as a result of the American civil war.

Related Database Records

• Entry no. <947>: