The Prosperous Cotton Textile Industry of a Bengal District: A Study of Colonial Period

In colonial Bengal, the cotton manufacturing industry of the Birbhum district was organized on a domestic basis. Every manufacturer's cottage was a little workshop, and there was not an important village without such cottages. When the European traders had come to the district new markets and trade circuits opened up. The entry of the European merchant capital into the districts enhanced to a great extent the productive potentialities of the rural cotton industry. A growing market in abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom and Europe led to a large increase in the production of cotton piece-goods of the districts. The cotton industry of the district grew rapidly due to extensive export trade by the British East India Company. But, the prosperous cotton industry of the district had started to decline since the beginning of the nineteenth century. This article seeks to discuss the status of cotton textile industry in Birbhum district in the period during the mid eighteenth to the early nineteenth century.