Its  beautiful bolls,
And bates of rich value, the Master controls.
Of ‘mud-stills’ he prates, and would haughtily bring
The world to acknowledge that ‘Cotton is King.’

The Gospel of Slavery, by ‘Iron Gray.’, Reverend Abel C. Thomas

Officially residing in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, during the period of an extended ‘secondment’ in Bonn, I decided to experiment with coffee grounds, cotton clothing and the human body as a unit of labour. The cotton represents the raw material upon which wealth was made by the plantation economy in slavery states in the Deep South, USA. According to PBS, an  American broadcasting service, ‘Cotton was one of the world’s first luxury commodities, after sugar and tobacco, and was also the commodity whose production most dramatically turned millions of black human beings in the United States themselves into commodities.’ It further states, ‘Cotton prolonged America’s most serious social tragedy, slavery, and slaved-produced cotton caused the American Civil War.’  Slavery became the foundation of the American Economy. The question has been asked whether without slavery, would the US be the leading economic power?