BA2 BUSINESS STUDIES CLASS READING - GLOBAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL - GLOBALIZATION
​​

WORLD TRADE AND POLITICS
​

Because of their economic value, textiles have deeply affected the course of world trade and the history of nations and cultures. Cloth literally functioned as the backbone of many national and global economies ...

The global textile trade led to far-reaching changes in people's lives. The story of just one type of textile - chintz, or printed cotton - demonstrates the point. Now, when cotton prints are relatively inexpensive and taken for granted, it is hard to imagine that they were once such valuable commodities that they affected world events, but this was certainly the case. The people of India had early on mastered the art of weaving their native cotton, and developed techniques to apply colourfast patterns to its surface. Their cloth had an international reputation - even the ancient Greeks praised it highly - but cotton trade was not highly developed until the 16th century, when ships were regularly navigating the globe. Then, there was a particularly strong demand in Asia for Indian printed cloth. ('Chintz' was derived from the Indian 'chitta', meaning 'spotted cloth'; it originally  referred to any Indian cotton with a pattern or design) ...

When Europeans became aware of the huge Asian appetite for Indian chintz, they quickly tried to get in on the market ... It was the British who eventually came to dominate the cotton trade, and this led to their eventual domination of India, as they took political control and became an imperial power.

Originally, there was not a huge European demand for chintz; rather, European traders brought their own goods - primarily  metals - to India, exchanged them for cotton, and then shipped the cloth to the East Indies, where there was little interest in European goods. The cotton was in turn exchanged for spices. This was known as a 'trade triangle' ... In time, however, Europeans themselves became enamoured with the bright printed cottons - so much so that chintz eventually became a virtual obsession ...

​The demand was great enough that governments perceived the chintz trade as a financial threat to their own industries. French and later English authorities enacted laws prohibiting its use. It became so dangerous to wear Indian chintz garments on the streets of France that women often carried their cotton gowns with them to parties and changed into them once they were safe from public view. If they were caught, the garments would be confiscated, and wearers might be fined or punished. One account described the public burning of 800 Indian cotton garments. Eventually, European craftsmen started to make their own printed cottons. They adopted some aspects of the Indian process, but found other, speedier ways to get some of the same effects ...

The triangle trade that is perhaps best known in the West was the one that involved trafficking in human beings. Here, too, cloth played a central role. Starting in about 1700, European ships sailed to the west coast of Africa with cargoes of cotton fabric (Originally the cotton came from India, but later from British mills), firearms, and liquor. The cloth was sold to slave traders who in exchange captured individuals, loaded them on ships, and took them across the sea to provide cheap plantation labor in the Americas. Once emptied of their human cargo, the ships returned to Europe loaded with the products of those plantations - rum, sugar, tobacco, and ironically, eventually cotton. (Gordon, 2013, pp.167-70).
​

REFERENCE

Gordon, B. (2013 [2011] ) Textiles. The whole story - uses, meaning, significance. London: Thames and Hudson.