And now comes the important question: Was cotton indigenous to India in these very early times? and was it carried and afterwards planted in Egypt, Africa, and America?
As an attempt is made to successfully answer this question, our minds are thrown back to the time when Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, having heard of India, desired to find a new way to that country. Comparatively poor himself, he was unable to equip an expedition, and laid his scheme before the Council of Genoa. They declined to have anything to do with it, and he is found next presenting his case to the King of Portugal. Here he alike failed, and he ultimately applied to the King and Queen of Spain, when he met with success.
The 3rd of August, 1492, found him fully equipped with two ships, and on his way west to find a new way to India. He first touched the Bahamas thirty days after setting sail from Europe, and to his astonishment he was met by the natives, who came out to meet him in canoes, bringing with them cotton yarn and thread for the purpose of barter. In Cuba he was surprised to find hammocks made from cotton cord in very general use. What Columbus observed in the West Indies as to the growth and manufacture of cotton, was found afterwards to be by no means confined to these islands, but that in South and Central America the natives were quite accustomed both to the growth and manufacture of cotton.
Indisputable evidence can be presented to prove that the ancient civilisations of Mexico, Peru, and Central America, were well acquainted with cotton. When Peru was subjugated in 1522 by Pizarro, the manufacture of cotton was in a flourishing condition.
Similarly when Mexico fell into the hands of Cortez in 1519, he too found that the use of cotton was very general. So delighted was he at what he saw of the quality and beauty of their manufactured goods, that he had no hesitation in dispatching to Europe a present consisting of mantles, to the Emperor Charles V.
Five years after Columbus started on his momentous voyage, another expedition under Vasco da Gama set out from the Tagus to make the voyage to India by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Immediately Gama had safely reached India, there were others who quickly desired to follow, and in 1516 another adventurous Spaniard on his way to India called at S. Africa, and found the natives wearing garments made of cotton.