Abstract

"Spinning Cotton, Spinning Slavery: Pro-Confederate Investor-Activists in Britain during the American Civil War"

Stuart Anderson-Davis, Columbia University (sra2168@columbia.edu)

During the final days of the American Civil War a U.S. diplomat stealthily leaked a document that he promised would explain “some of the incidents of our war that have seemed hitherto to most people incomprehensible.” The “Cotton List” – purportedly a record of British elites who invested in the $14.5m Confederate Cotton Bond, launched in 1863 – generated much media attention and public outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. Lambasted as disinformation by many of those named – including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Editor of The Times – the document nevertheless suggested that private financial interests had motivated the pro-Confederate conduct of various political and commercial leaders in Britain: a persuasive explanation for why they had apparently abandoned the nation’s abolitionist creed to support a fledgling proslavery republic.
My paper evaluates this thesis by examining both the origins of the “Cotton List” and the behavior of several individuals named on it, including entrepreneurs, merchants, bankers, speculators, and shipbuilders who directed and financed pro-Southern lobbying, PR, and community organizing in Britain. Founded on archival research, the paper reveals how these commercial elites sought to “co-create” using deception and misdirection: galvanizing popular support for the Confederacy that they hoped would enhance various profit-seeking ventures, from cotton smuggling to selling Confederate bonds. These Britons, in collaboration with Confederate agents, bastardized the popular persuasion playbook (one largely pioneered by anti-slavery activists): covertly coordinating grassroots associations, publishing and distributing Confederate propaganda, spreading disinformation about the North, coercing employees to sign parliamentary petitions, and more. The public exposure of their machinations not only damaged personal and professional reputations, but fueled broader debate about transparency,