A number of publications from colonial-era South Carolina describe and even illustrate the process of transforming the indigo plant into a marketable dyestuff. The work of planting, tending, and harvesting indigo plants in eighteenth century South Carolina was done almost entirely by enslaved people of African descent. Besides cultivating the crop, they also built and maintained the vats and other apparatus used in the production process.
Likewise, enslaved men, women, and children also shouldered the bulk of the labor involved in extracting the blue dye from the plants and preparing the finished product for exportation. Some of this work demanded brute force, unskilled labor. Much of it, however, required intellectual skills that could only be acquired through long experience. The delegation of such important roles to enslaved workers denotes a level of trust, and perhaps respect, that helps us to understand of the complexities of slavery in early South Carolina.
He estimated fifty pounds per acre to be an average yield. Thus fifty acres of plants would yield an average of 2, pounds of dye, and required the labor of at least twenty-five enslaved workers.
Because that means an average of one hundred pounds of product per laborer, the planter had to decide whether the ever-mercurial price of indigo on the British market merited the investment of his time, money, and resources. In the year , South Carolina exported more than one million pounds of dried indigo cakes to England.
The commencement of the American Revolution, which followed years of simmering political tensions, permanently dismantled the traditional mercantile links between American farmers and British customers. Some South Carolina planters continued to grow indigo and to produce the dye during the eight-year war, but they had a difficult time finding customers for the product. The Continental Congress, of which South Carolina was a member, prohibited the exportation of any goods except rice, until the summer of to Britain or any of her allies.
South Carolina producers of indigo then tried to market their product to customers in the Northern colonies and to French customers in the Caribbean, but their success was limited. The long-standing bounty on American indigo, created by the British Parliament in , expired in At the conclusion of the American Revolution in , some South Carolina planters returned to the cultivation of indigo.
Its price on the international market increased for a short while, but European merchants generally found indigo produced by the Spanish and French colonies to be superior to that from Carolina, both in quantity and quality. By the early s, there was a worldwide oversupply of indigo dye, and South Carolina planters realized that chasing after indigo profits like they had before the war was now a futile endeavor. Meanwhile, mechanical improvements to the cotton gin in the early s transformed that crop into a highly profitable commodity.
In response, many South Carolina indigo planters abandoned the blue dye and began growing cotton. By the year , South Carolina was riding a boom of cotton exports while the commercial exportation of indigo had quietly faded into oblivion. European chemists found a laboratory method of synthesizing an indigo-blue dye aniline around the middle of the nineteenth century, and the subsequent mass production of the synthetic dye doomed the traditional commercial industry that revolved around organic indigo.
Indigo is a very visible and popular topic of conversation in twenty-first century South Carolina and beyond. A small number of people around the world are advocating for a return to the commercial production of organic indigo dye and other dyes from plants grown in a sustainable manner.
Scientists working in partnership with farmers are experimenting with the cultivation of indigo plants as a means of amending soil and air quality. Closer to home, modern efforts to renew local interest in indigo have reintroduced the two imported species of indigo I.
While South Carolinians in the eighteenth century undertook the cultivation of indigo plants and the production of indigo dye in the hopes of making a good profit, most efforts to cultivate indigo in this area today focus on education, explorations of cultural heritage, and expressions of artistic vision. On the eve of the American Revolution in , there were many hundreds—perhaps thousands—of indigo vats scattered across the South Carolina Lowcountry. Most were built of cedar or cypress wood and have long since disappeared, but a few brick vats still survive.
Indigo is a beautiful substance that is inexorably linked to a long and painful chapter in the history of South Carolina. By embracing the consoling beauty of indigo and acknowledging the full breadth of its local history, we remember the enslaved people with blue-stained hands whose lives and labors contributed to the success of this community.
And we see that indigo truly is part of the fabric of South Carolina history. Louise Bailey. Johnston, , — Stephen, South Carolina London, Ancient History Indigo is one of the oldest dyes used for printing and textile coloring. Skip to main content. The City Magazine Since Search form. August In addition to economic motives, indigo production also succeeded because it fit within the existing agricultural economy. The crop could be grown on land not suited for rice and tended by slaves, so planters and farmers already committed to plantation agriculture did not have to reconfigure their land and labor.
It was grown commercially from to and was second only to rice in export value. South Carolina experimented with indigo production as early as the s but could not compete with superior dyes produced in the West Indies. Cultivating and processing the plant was complex, and planters found other commodities more reliable and easier to produce. In London colonial agent James Crokatt persuaded Parliament in to subsidize Carolina indigo production by placing a bounty of six pence per pound on the dye.
England received almost all Carolina indigo exports, although by the s a small percentage was being shipped to northern colonies. Two varieties of indigo were native to Carolina, Indigofera Carolinians and Indigofera Lespotsepala, but neither produced a reputable dye. A selected guide to the literature of the flowering plants of Mexico. Leggett, W. Ancient and medieval dyes. Chemical Publishing Co. Leix, A. Oriental dye markets of the Middle Ages.
Ciba Rev. Leonard, M. An old industry. Popular Sci. Monthly 46 49 : — Neuburger, M. Medieval dyeing techniques. Palmer, E. Plants used by the Indians of the United States. Article Google Scholar. Prain, D. Notes in Indigofera. Rembert, D. Indigofera suffruticosa Mill. Rogers, G. Savage, H. River of the Carolinas: the Santee. Sharrer, G. Indigo in Carolina, — South Carolina Hist. Standley, P.
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