Split oak cotton picking basket from the United States

Split oak woven cotton picking basket, of the type that would have been used by enslaved people, as well as by workers post-Emancipation in the southern United States. Made in South Carolina between 1920 and 1950, the maker is unknown.

This handcrafted wooden basket was used to store and transport cotton picked on plantations. It is in the style directly descended from those used by enslaved people who were forced to harvest cotton in the southern United States.

Enslaved people were expected to gather between two hundred and three hundred pounds of cotton per day. They used baskets like this one to transport the cotton to the gin house, where the cotton fibres would be separated from the seed using a machine called a cotton gin. Cotton growing was a cornerstone of South Carolina’s economy, and this form of agriculture continued beyond Emancipation (the freeing of the enslaved) in the United States.

The exploitative plantation systems included the ‘pushing system’, whereby planters enforced ever-increasing, gruelling cotton-picking quotas, which, if not met, resulted in harsh punishments enacted upon the enslaved. Enslaved people actively resisted the pushing system. Since the quotas were sometimes based on the weight of cotton picked by the ‘highest performer’, the enslaved community would covertly work to slow down the pace of cotton picking. They would also damage or sabotage tools, to decrease their productivity and therefore force the overseers to adjust their expectations of the labour of the enslaved.

During and post the transatlantic slave trade (estimated to have started in circa 1492 and ended in approximately 1865), Manchester relied heavily on the supply of raw cotton picked under plantation slavery systems. Cotton, exported to England, was processed in mills across the North West of England. The finished textiles were even used in exchange for enslaved African people or to clothe the enslaved population in the southern United States, the Caribbean and Brazil.