Pulling the wool over settler eyes (wool is settler colonial, cotton is colonial): Yahya Birt, ‘Bradford’s Wool as a Settler Colonial Commodity’, Somali Village, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Pulling the wool over settler eyes (wool is settler colonial, cotton is colonial): Yahya Birt, ‘Bradford’s Wool as a Settler Colonial Commodity’, Somali Village, 2025

18Jul25

Excerpt: In the early 19th century, Bradford emerged as a powerhouse of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, becoming the nation’s leader in mechanised wool spinning. Wool was the town’s lifeblood; by 1881, a third of Bradford’s working men and two-thirds of its working women were employed in the trade. While Manchester was known as “King Cotton”, Bradford earned the moniker “Worstedopolis”. Unlike cotton, which is widely associated with the slave plantations of the Americas, wool still carries a romanticised image as a traditional, local product tied to Britain’s pastoral heritage. Wool is even tied up with the myth of Bradford’s foundation, as a “broad ford” where medieval sheep drovers on their way to York settled when they found the soft waters of the stream, Bradford Beck, ideal for preparing the fleece for sale. However, during the 19th century, wool was transformed into a colonial commodity. The mechanisation of wool combing in Yorkshire helped drive the global expansion of sheep farming, fuelling settler colonialism across the world. From the Scottish Highlands to the plains of Western America, and from Australia to South Africa, wool production required vast tracts of land – land that was often violently seized from its original inhabitants.

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