11 research outputs found
Whatâs in a price? the American raw cotton market in Liverpool and the Anglo-American war
This article argues that an embryonic futures market was present in Liverpool during the Anglo-American war. The analysis of a previously unseen dataset of printed Prices Currents has facilitated not only a price series of raw cotton prices, but an in-depth analysis of the âconstructionâ of those raw cotton prices. By positing a definition of.an embryonic futures market and then analysing each of the features of a such a market in turn, this study demonstrates the existence of an embryonic futures market in early nineteenth-century Liverpool
Coercion and Resistance in the Colonial Market: Cotton in Britainâs African Empire
Throughout the nineteenth century, the American South was the worldâs leading producer of raw cotton. European â especially British â textile firms used American cotton to supply the world with cheap manufactured cloth. The African continent was on the periphery of this transatlantic circuit: forced into slavery and transported to the Americas, African peoples supplied much of the agricultural labour on which the cotton industry rested, but the African continent itself remained isolated from the expanding reach of the âempire of cottonâ