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Synopsis
When eleven Southern states opted to secede from the American Federation in 1861, the odds were long stacked against them. The South was much weaker than the North in terms of population, industrial capacity, naval power, and perhaps most importantly, finance. Aside from a very strong military tradition, the only ace the South possessed was they were by far the world’s largest and most efficient cotton producers, backed by the horrific institution of plantation slavery. The South proclaimed that “Cotton is King” and reckoned that Britain and France, whose burgeoning industries relied on American cotton, would be forced to recognize Southern independence, and to use their vast naval, economic, and diplomatic power to break the Northern blockade and to end the war. Among the many firms involved in the cotton trade were severalGreek firms with operations in Britain, Egypt, the Mediterranean, and India as well as a small presence in the United States, particularly the massive sea and river port of New Orleans. Though a small player in the American market, the Greeks were the largest actors in the growing and pivotal Egyptian cotton market. As secession loomed, many highly experienced Greek cotton merchants began moving out of the South and in some cases directly to Alexandria, and Egyptian cotton production, heavily traded, financed, and carried by Greeks, increased four-fold during the American Civil War. Though British and French industry suffered, and cotton prices skyrocketed, there were enough alternative supplies from Egypt, India, and Brazil to keep British and French mills running and the Confederacy unrecognized, which after a long fight succumbed to the overwhelming military, economic, and financial might of the Union. Did the Greeks’ market intelligence and sense of economic opportunity shift the fortunes of war?
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