Procurement of Indian Textiles for West Africa, 1750–1850

Abstract

This chapter examines how European merchants procured cotton textiles in India for West Africa from 1750 to 1850. Following the geographical distributions of cotton production in South India and the basic network of textile procurement around the Coromandel Coast regions until the late eighteenth century, the chapter discusses the institutional change to the procurement system by the English East India Company, followed by the impact of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and British industrialisation. Following this, the discussion moves on to the French business of textile procurement in Pondicherry in the early nineteenth century, and considers the dissimilarities in textile procurement in South India between the English and the French.