The Cotton Boll

Gossypium herbarium

Gossypium herbaceum
Gender: Feminine
Element: Earth
​Planet: Moon

We’ve all heard of cotton, but how much do you really know about it? 

We’ve all undoubtedly heard about slaves picking cotton so their owners could become wealthy and live extravagant lives, and the devastating impact that continues to this day. If you have any doubt, read The Black Tax : The Cost of Being Black in America, by Shawn D. Rochester, described in the Chicago Press as "one of the most important books of our times. It describes how the tax system functioned in the past and continues today to be a key generator of racial injustice and inequality."
How much do we know about the actual plant? This is a very brief overview. My hope is it will entice you to learn more about this herb and how it impacted, and continues to impact, the lives of generations.

• ​The cotton boll is classified as a fruit because it contains seeds.
• It is classified as an herb because it is useful.​
• As the boll develops, the leaves on the plant turn red. 
• It takes about 4 months for the the boll to ripen and split open. 
• A cotton boll contains 27 to 45 seeds. 
• ​Each seed grows between 10,000 and 20,000 hairs or fibers.
• ​Lined up, end to end, fibers from a single boll can stretch more than 6 miles. (One source said 20 miles but I wasn’t able to verify that number.)

Gray, Lewis C.,  The History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860
Woodman, Harold D., King Cotton and his Retainers, Lexington, University of Kentucky Press

The boll is the casing that protects the seeds of the plant. It has been used since prehistoric times. It is native to Africa, North and South America, Australia and India.Remnants of cotton in copper beads have been found in 5500 BC. Textiles from cotton were used in China, Egypt and India hundreds of years BC. 
The growth of slavery in the United States in the antebellum south was central to the growth of agriculture. Plantation owners relied on the knowledge about growing and harvesting crops (cotton, tobacco and rice), that enslaved African Americans brought with them from their experiences in their native countries.  “The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primary of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the Unites States from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominately in the south.” Slavery in the United States by Charles Ball. 
Even after the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, many freed slaves remained in oppressive relationships because of lack of means to escape the cycle, and continued to work under dire conditions picking cotton.
In the early 1920s, over production, along with the destruction caused by the boll weevil resulted in a crisis in the cotton industry. ​