The Most ambitious plan emanated from Dr. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary turned explorer. Livingstone wanted to replace American cotton with African cotton produced by free labor in Batoka. His “bold messianic vision linked together not only ecommerce, civilization and Christianity but also free trade free labour.” Nothing came of these plans to displace American cotton.
The English press grew alarmed about this dependence. Blackwood’s Magazine in 1853 bemoaned the fate of “millions in every manufacturing country in Europe within the power of an oligarchy of planters.”