Art
is how we cope with them.
David Zinn
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Rogue
Cop, Angel Indigo, Little Jaguar, |
Lacking the chances to tour abroad smoothly or safely (due to unforeseen or sudden covid changes or restrictions), I choose to ‘travel’ more locally via events or exhibitions. Journeying through time and places, history and knowledge, art and culture. Great opportunities to continue questioning my own world understanding, as well as remaining in awe of people’s creativity and innovations.
This spring, I visited Indelible Blue (prefaced by Intervention Indigo), Beyond Van Gogh, and saw the amazing fresco ‘Mundos de Mestizajes’ by Santa Fe artist Frederico Vigil, one of, if not the, largest inside ‘buon (true) fresco’ in the United States.
The alchemy of blue magic turns into gorgeous and thoughtful creations. Please come along.
Part one: Intervention Indigo by Laura Anderson Barbata, 2015 & 2020.
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Indigo Queen |
Using procession, performance of ceremonial dance, music, textile art, costuming, ritual, improvised interaction with an audience, and protest, Intervention Indigo is a call to action to serve and protect against the racism-based violence and murder of people of color, at the hands of the police, in the United States and around the world.
Its point of departure is the color Indigo, a dye used around the globe, which has been associated with protection, wisdom and royalty (even most police uniforms are blue). Laura’s interventions have been seen in the US and Mexico, protesting against racism and violence mostly toward African American and Afro-Mexican people.
In that regard, her team has been showcasing their protest-art in the streets of Brooklyn (2015) and Mexico City (2020). To see the 2015 intervention in Bushwick, Brooklyn, click here.
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| Rolling Calf – In motion, 2015 |
An estimated two million Afro-Mexicans live in the coastal states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. Yet, the Mexican Constitution did not officially recognize the Afro-Mexican population until 2018 and it wasn’t until 2020 that the Mexican census allowed for self-identification as Afro-Mexican, Afro-Descendant, or Black. I wrote about ‘Blaxicans’ in one of my posts back in 2017, when I lived in Campeche.
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Diablos (devils) |
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| More Diablos |
From my somewhat untrained perspective, these pieces were magnificent and powerful even though they were not animated like they usually are when on city streets. I can only imagine what it would be like to have seen them dancing and alive.
Writing has been difficult for me while Ukraine is being needlessly and relentlessly attacked by Russia. These strong figures have reminded me of the infinite strength of the Ukrainian people. There is blue in their flag. There is power in their genuine hearts.
Part Two: Indelible Blue: Indigo
Across the Globe
The allure of indigo has persisted for thousands of years and continues
in the present day. Blue remains one of
the rarest naturally occurring colors, and indigo is one of the
few botanical sources of blue dye.
Unlike most other dyes, it can be used on both animal materials and
vegetable fibers and does not require mordant.
Indigo, as a product, represents the significant social and economic
impacts that exist alongside the fascination with, and the beauty of, the color
blue.
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Japanese Indigo Cake
from Two Looms Farms, Omak, WA (L) |
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Indigo Block Printed Sarees, India, 2015-2016 |
Indigo, like many commodity materials, provides an opportunity to
consider the impacts of globalization across a long range of time. The environmental and ethical impact of both
historic and contemporary indigo cultivation, production, and trade, are
explored throughout the exhibition.
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Zuni Pueblo – Diamond Twill Manta (wearing blanket) |
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Close-up of diamond pattern (below) and
twill (above) |
Though indigo has been a commodity for thousands of years, the global indigo trade was at its peak from the 17th to the 19th century. The cultivation and processing of indigo during this time was done at the hands of enslaved people for European as well as the American South’s profit, presenting yet another example of the ethical ramifications of colonization.
It was not until the discovery of synthetic indigo around 1880 that the botanical indigo trade subsided. Today, most blue dye is synthetic, using coal tar and other chemicals to produce it, most times, at devastating costs to rivers and ecosystems around major production centers.
The history of indigo across the globe encompasses examples of human creativity, ingenuity, and artistry. Indelible Blue demonstrates how our own connectivity across cultures, traditions, and time are entangled within this very long history.
From representing royalty to staining the skin of nomadic tribes, indigo is symbolically significant for textiles in the continent of Africa. Indigo-dyed cloth is a visual illustration of status, a viable commodity for trade, or a worn garment. West Africa, in particular, had significant indigo activity and the Yoruba tribes of Nigeria and the Hausa people are known for their expertise. If you imagine the browns, reds and oranges in the landscape of much of West Africa, owning something the color of the never-ending blue sky itself was like bringing the sky down to earth, and owning a piece of magic.
I encountered Maya Blue, from as early as 300 CE, while visiting the Yucatán, MX. It has been called ‘one of the great technological and artistic achievements of Mesoamerica’. It was discovered in 1923, identified in 1931, and yet it took an additional 77 years (until 2008) to figure out how it was made. Impressive compound being the first known paint to use indigo and nanoparticles (contained in the nanoclay it was mixed with) mechanism!
Local Sultans supported the production of garments worn in courts as a symbol of status. However, nomadic tribes such as the Tuareg also used indigo-dyed clothing to distinguish their community across Saharan West Africa. The Tuareg controlled trans-Saharan textile trade routes of indigo until colonial France invaded West Africa in the late 19th century. The indigo color of their clothes sometimes stained their skin which led to their description as the ‘Blue People.’ More on them at the end of this post.
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Grand Luminary or Great Star Pattern US Flag with Indigo
blue |
The growth of global trade, the establishment of European colonies across the world, and the demand for indigo dye resulted in the development of indigo plantations throughout the Americas. This system for large-scale production of indigo originated in the Caribbean, Central and South America and the American South. This model spread to other colonized regions, including India. The labor required to grow and process the material was forced onto enslaved African people and indigenous inhabitants in these areas. In the USA, the biggest colonial producer of indigo was South Carolina which exported the product throughout the late 18th century. Indigo pigment itself was a commodity traded for enslaved peoples.
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Red, White, Black and Blue, An Homage to African
American Indigo |
Due to the process of fermenting the indigo in large vats, disease-carrying mosquitoes were common on indigo plantations leading to widespread sickness.
African people captured and enslaved in the USA brought significant knowledge and skills in indigo cultivation and dyeing. Many grew, processed, and dyed their own clothes. Enslaved people wore indigo-dyed hemp, cotton, and flax and it was sometimes described as ‘slave cloth’ or ‘negro cloth.’ This clothing was the foundation for the early ‘blue jean’ designs.
The origin of the word indigo comes from the Greek ‘inkikon,’ and Latin ‘indicum’ meaning ‘coming from India.’ Indeed, India was a significant exporter of blue dye – called Neel Atha (Blue Mother) – for thousands of years, before it became the center of the global indigo trade during British colonization in the 1880’s. As early as more than 5,000 years ago, our ancestors in India, East Asia and Egypt, used the blue dye to color their clothes, art, etc. As with other parts of the world with diverse indigo-bearing plant varieties, indigo cultivation and dyeing spread throughout Asia and South Asia via extensive trade.
Indigo was widely worn and produced throughout much of Asia. The common belief is that indigo plants and
knowledge moved from China to Japan by Korean artisans around the 5th
century CE, coinciding with the spread of Buddhism. In China, indigo was used extensively to dye
everyday garments. Similarly, in Japan,
indigo was originally used by women to dye family clothing, but around the 12th
century, indigo dyeing became a male-dominated profession in cities and
villages. Indigo-dyed clothing was
believed to have insect repellant and antiseptic properties and was thus valued
by Samurai injured in combat. Firemen
also wore indigo jackets due to their flame-retardant properties. Indigo was integrated into many aspects of
life and creative endeavors and was used as a pigment in Japanese woodblock
prints.
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Indigo God, Year of the Rat |
‘In India, whenever a child is born in our
village, the cloth used for filtering the indigo dye is taken to swaddle the
baby as it has medicinal properties. Older children with ailments like fever
are also made to sleep on a piece of indigo-dyed cloth for faster recovery. We
have also been regularly supplying indigo roots (avari in local parlance) to
traditional healers who use it for various skin ailments and allergies.’
Ahamed
,%204,400%20BCE,%20diagram%20(L),%20with%20indigo%20blue,%20Huaca%20Prieta,%20Peru.png) |
Diagram (L) and Fragment (R) of 6,200 year-old woven
piece with indigo blue |
Indigo can refer to many things – it is a dye, a color, and often refers to hundreds of different species of plants that contain the chemical precursor, indicant, which can produce a blue dye. Indigo has been used as a dye across the globe for at least the last 6,200 years – the earliest example comes from indigo-dyed cotton uncovered at Huaca Prieta in Peru.
This predates by ~1,600 years the earliest reported use of indigo in the Old World, from Fifth Dynasty Egypt [ca. 4,400 BP (before present)]. Indigo is one of the most valued and most globally widespread dyes of antiquity and of the present era, it being the blue of blue jeans.
A wide array of artistic media have included indigo pigment for hundreds
of years, including dyed fabrics from around the world, the ink used in
Japanese woodblock prints, Mayan ceramics, fine art, and even Renaissance
paintings from Western Europe.
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| Japanese bed cover, Indigo and Sumi ink, 1900’s |
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Distribution of different varieties of indigo plants around
the world. |
There are hundreds of plant species belonging to several different families that contain indicant, the chemical source of indigo’s blue dye. Only a handful of these are commonly cultivated as they produce a much more potent dye. Outside of these primary varieties, other plants bearing indicant are often referred to as ‘false’ or ‘pseudo’ indigo and have been used to extract blue pigment to a lesser degree. The three most prominent species used across the globe are Indigofera Tinctoria (best/true one), Isatis Tinctoria (woad), and Polygonum Tinctorium.
The Indigo Revolt
Or Neel Bidroha in Hindi, erupted in 1859 when indigo farmers revolted against British capitalist planters who, under the British Crown, forced Indians to give up their land and work it exclusively for British benefit. Initially, the rebellion began as a peaceful protest in which the farmers refused to plant more of that crop. But as the movement spread throughout the Bengali region, it turned violent as farmers burned fields and factories.
Some scholars date the beginning of indigo production in India to the Indus Valley Civilization 3,000-1,000 BCE, in the northwestern portion of the country. But commercial indigo cultivation in the Bengal region of eastern India dates back to 1777 as the British expanded their colonial empire. Indigo plantations replaced food crops as they provided more revenue for the British.
By the time of the Indigo Revolt in 1859-60, farmers were forced to take expensive loans from the British planters to begin their indigo farms and were paid only 2.5% of the profit. Over six million farmers left their farms in protest, with many burning their fields. The British-backed police and military slaughtered farmers to end the revolt. The subsequent Indigo Commission found that farmers should not have been forced to grow indigo. E.W.L. Tower, a magistrate of Bengal, stated that ‘not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood’ in his 1860 Indigo Commission’s report.
While the revolt turned violent, the original intent of the protesters was to remain non-violent. This model provided a foundation for future peaceful protests in India and fomented Bengali national sentiment that ultimately led to Indian independence in 1947. Gandhi found inspiration for a campaign of non-violence against British rule after visiting indigo farmers.
‘I believe Gandhi based his strategy on Bengal’s
precedence to demand legal justice.
At that time, the greatest oppression was against
the agrarian community.
There were agrarian revolts in many places and
even though they were dispersed,
they became a formidable force to deal with.
Babu (Grandpa) was shrewd enough to identify this
segment and other impoverished craftsmen who were left unemployed by the
industrial revolution;
he used their unity to fight the battles for
Indian Independence.
Hand-spun fabrics and natural dyes were seen as
symbols of self-reliance during India’s independence movement.’
Tushar Gandhi, Gandhi’s great-grandson
With the Gold Rush in America and the industrial revolution in Europe, the demand for both working men and indigo kept soaring. This intensified the search for cheaper and better forms of dye production. A huge breakthrough came when, in 1865, the German Nobel-prize winning chemist, Adolf von Baeyer, managed to produce artificial indigo from an organic compound called isatin. He began to experiment with producing synthetic indigo and his first success with this was around 1880. A commercially viable synthetic indigo product wasn’t available until the 1890’s and didn’t become widespread on the global market until the early 1900’s.
Even with the production of synthetic indigo, plant-based indigo persisted in the marketplace. Often a mixture of plant-based and synthetic indigo was put together in a single dye vat. By the 1910’s however, synthetic indigo began to dominate the market. It is nearly impossible to distinguish synthetic from plant-based indigo dye on fabrics. Therefore, synthetic indigo, which can be made far more cheaply, has come to be the primary blue dye around the world. Despite this, the production of synthetic indigo requires chemicals including aniline, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, and sodium amide which can be dangerous to humans and the environment.
Mass production of indigo was possible now and quickly dashed the price of the natural dye world over and completely decimated the Indian indigo industry in the next twenty years. The natural indigo dyeing process is becoming rarer and rarer. Today there are only a handful of producers who provide natural indigo dyed fabrics, with most of them found in Brazil, Indonesia and El Salvador. Almost all of our denim clothes are dyed using synthetic indigo which gives it a darker blue shade.
It’s easy to forget that indigo used to be a rare commodity. Only a few centuries back, this mysterious dyestuff was so exclusive that only royalty and the aristocracy could afford it. It was imported with great difficulty from far-off colonies, which earned indigo a status similar to that of tea, coffee, silk or even gold.
Throughout its long history, indigo has been revered. In days of ancient Egypt, weavers inserted blue stripes in the borders of plain linen mummy cloths. Today it remains a favorite for Japanese shibori-style tie-dyed linens and denim jeans.
This vibrant blue became so important that it ignited trade wars between European countries and colonized territories in the Americas while fueling the African slave trade.
Today, indigo dyed garments are an integral part of everyone’s wardrobe – whether you’re a construction worker or a banker, a minister or a rock star, a toddler or an old man. In our current world, where over one billion pairs of blue jeans are produced annually, working with purely plant-based products would require a conscious dedication.
The Bewitching Indigo Blue
Indigo is the dark blue dye collected from the indigo plant and it is also the color between blue and violet in the rainbow.
By 1289, news of the dye made its way to Europe, when the Venetian merchant traveler, Marco Polo arrived. It was first encountered in the flourishing markets of the Middle East, who in turn obtained the dye from East Asia. From 1498 onwards, it became easier to obtain indigo as a sea route to India was discovered. Italians started importing even greater quantities of indigo to Northern Europe. The Indian indigo was found to be of a far superior quality than the local variety called woad. Needless to say, local woad producers felt quite threatened by this hugely popular import and termed it as ‘the devil’s dye’.
My own first encounter with this beautiful plant was in Morocco in the early 1980’s when I climbed Mount Toubkal, surrounded by the Berber people, almond orchards, fields of indigo, chickpeas, etc. Indigo is generally grown as a perennial shrub, although in Morocco it grows as a biennial herbaceous plant.
The color was so prized that indigo was considered ‘Blue Gold.’ It was available only to the rich and powerful. It became one of the most profitable commodities for the two largest shipping conglomerates of the day: British East India Company and Dutch East India Company. Two tons of indigo plants yield nearly 3–5 kilos of indigo powder and records show that England alone imported 40,000 tons of indigo from India in 1895.
Indigo Along the Camino Real
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Poncho Style Navajo (Diné) Sarape, ca 1850-60 |
Early in the colonial period, indigo-dyed textiles were found throughout
New Spain. Commonly, the indigo-dyed
fabrics were seen in the robes worn by Franciscan friars, but the dye itself,
and indigo-dyed fabrics, also reached New Mexico via El Camino Real. These textiles came from all over the world,
often from places as far away as Europe and Asia. The dye that reached New Mexico often
originated in Mexico or Central America where the plant grew. Once in New Mexico, these commodities were
prized, traded, and used by locals. The
dye itself found its way into Pueblo and Diné weaving early on. What became known as the ‘Mystic Blue
of Diné’ weaving was one of the most inspiring accompanying colors used
with shades of black, white, and gray in traditional woolen textiles.
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Ikat Disfrazado (disguised) – by
contemporary |
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Preparing the Ikat of the Disfrazado |
Indigo remains a favored dye in New Mexico today and is used by
contemporary weavers and artists.
Individuals like Rita Padilla Haufmann incorporate indigo into their
works, all while utilizing traditional techniques such as carding, spinning,
dyeing, and weaving the wool.
Traditional santero (painter or sculptor of saints) Dr. Charlie Carrillo
also uses the dye in his work. In the
early 2000’s, he began a monochromatic indigo series of retablos (altarpieces) and
continues to produce them today.
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Nuestra Señora del
Rosario by Dr. Charlie Carillo, NM, 2004 |
The allure of the famous blue dye has made the story of indigo inseparable from the history of trade, colonialism, slavery, globalism, and cultural exchange. The labor-intensive process of growing indigo plants and extracting blue pigment from them combined with the value of indigo products led colonial powers to establish indigo plantations in the Southeastern United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, and India. The Indigo Revolt in India and the legacy of slavery are examples of the complex and sometimes violent history of how and why the plant has been grown, traded, and used.
The Natural Process of Indigo Dyeing
To start with, the harvested leaves of the Indigofera plant have to be soaked in water to let the indican (an amino acid) contained therein release glucose. The freed indican soon starts to ferment with the other plant enzymes. The product of this fermentation process is called indoxyl and as it is left to dry in the air, oxidizes and coagulates into the blue indigo.
This, in turn, is mixed with an alkaline solution (usually they would have used bicarbonate of soda) and the resulting sludge is then pressed into cakes and dried. The hard cakes finally could be ground into a fine powder which contained the much-coveted dark blue pigment.
While the production of
indigo dye was an arduous process, importing it to the European royal courts,
where the beautiful blue was in such high demand, was even more cumbersome and
above all very expensive.
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Indigo
Oxygenating by stirring, El Salvador |
Indigo plants consist of
a solitary stem which supports oval, deep green leaves and clutches of red
flowers (some say it looks a bit like basil). The dye is obtained from the
leaves through the arduous and smelly process of fermentation. Written records
dating back as early as the 18th century describe this fermentation
process in significant detail. The harvested indigo crop would be submerged in
huge containers filled with water. Wooden logs would then be kept atop these
containers to thoroughly press the crop inside. This would initiate the process
of fermentation – the water would begin boiling and turning blue. This blue liquid
was then drained into another container to separate out dirt and other debris
that might have gotten into the mixture.
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Dried
Indigo hung upside down |
This repulsive smelling blue water was then mixed around to further separate the plant from the pigment. Now a third container was employed to store this clear blue liquid. It was allowed to sit until the indigo contained within settled down. Then the water was drained out and the indigo set aside to dry. The final products were small blue objects which could be grated to get the wonderful blue dye.
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| Indigo Sedimenting, El Salvador |
Indigo differs from other natural dyes due to its inability to dissolve in water. It needs to be first reduced to a soluble character and then oxidized into the insoluble blue objects. Another peculiar quality of indigo is that it stays on the surface of the cloth being dyed. It does not seep inside the fibers making the dye susceptible to fading with repeated scraping and washing. In a sense, indigo mimics the beauty of a living breathing being by being vulnerable to the passage of time and varied experiences.
A naturally extracted indigo is also weak in nature. So, to get a rich blue color the cloth needs to be dunked in the dye multiple times along with giving it time to oxidize and dry in the air after every dip.
Natural Indigo, Folklore and Superstitions
There are three steps to the traditional process of extracting the dye from the plant.
- The leaves are fermented.
- The extracted liquid is oxidized and a blue sediment forms at the bottom of the vat.
- The sediment is collected and dried into cakes, which are then sold.
Broken into these three steps, indigo extraction seems simple, but it was, in fact, a complex and taxing process. Extracting the sludge sediment from the vat and then hurrying the evaporation process to create a dry cake was laborious.
The chemical properties of indigo dye remained baffling well into the 19th century. It was so mysterious and challenging to work with that, in many cultures, folklore arose around the dyeing process.
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Blue
Alchemy: The Story of Indigo |
Fermenting indigo leaves is quite a delicate procedure. There is a lot of scope for things to go wrong. This led to this natural dyeing process becoming surrounded with many superstitions. For example, in some places like Eastern Indonesia it began to be seen as a sacred activity that only women were permitted to carry out. Men were prohibited from even looking at the indigo vats.
There are a lot of nuances to the magic of turning this plant into the color blue – from burying the indigo pots in packed earth to stabilize the temperature to feeding the vat with cassia tora seeds to speed up the fermentation process. The indigo vats need to be treated like living organisms, it takes all senses to know when it is perfect. From smell, touch and sight to even stirring sound, one can perfect the art of indigo dyeing only with a lot of time.
In Bhutan, pregnant women were not allowed near the vat in case the unborn baby stole the blues, and women in Morocco believed the only way to deal with a particularly challenging vat was to start telling outrageous lies.
But for color-crazed Europe, all this trouble was worth the final result. Once dyed, indigo is so colorfast that it can last for centuries or even millennia. Today, museums are filled with tapestries that are said to suffer from ‘blue disease’ – all this time later, the only color that remains of them is their blue indigo.
Direct Indigo Dyeing
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Indigo
dye bath |
Apart from the ancient dyeing process described above, another method came to prominence in Europe and parts of South India called Direct Dyeing. As the name suggests this method entailed applying the dye directly to a cloth fiber. This was achieved by making a paste of indigo, lime, starch and orpiment – a mineral used as a reducing agent. Much like paint, this paste was smeared onto the cloth using a brush and then aired to make it blue. This technique was in vogue during the 17th and 18th century. But it never became as popular as the original vatting process. This was because it was as labor and time intensive as the vat process. Yet it would yield a blue color that lacked the depth and evenness obtained from the latter process.
The Overdyeing Process
In
some areas of Indonesia indigo dyed fabrics are sometimes treated to the Overdyeing
Process wherein the plant morinda is used to give the fabric a dark violet blue
shade. By the 1980’s however morinda roots were substituted by the chemical
napthol dye. This heralded the beginning of the synthetic overdyeing process.
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Various
shades of indigo blue |
Woad, Indigo’s Bastard Sibling and European Cousin
Imported indigo’s burgeoning demand was mostly limited to European royalty and aristocracy since they were the only groups who could afford the exorbitant prices demanded by indigo traders. This led to the cultivation of local alternatives to the Indigofera, like the Isatis Tinctoria, which could survive the colder European climate. Cultivated since the 12th century, this European variety came to be known as woad or false indigo.
Despite the superiority of indigo over other dyes, Europe was relatively slow to import the dye. English dyers were initially quite resistant to using indigo. They already had a thriving trade in blue using woad and didn’t want another competing product – no matter how superior. Woad producers were initially protected from imported indigo when in 1577 the latter was banned by the Roman Empire.
France also had well-established dyeing industries that utilized woad, so it outlawed indigo for nearly 73 years, from 1596 to 1669. Despite the ban, the French upper-class was obsessed with the blue and simply ignored any attempts at curbing their indigo obsession. The French ban was lifted by 1737, and the French quickly achieved an indigo monopoly. Guess their biggest customers? The English, of course!
Producing indigo from woad consumed almost as much time and energy as cultivating it from its tropical cousin. However, its yield was one thirtieth that of Indigofera. Hence, the hunt for better alternatives continued till the 17th century when a near relative of the tropical Indigofera, Amorpha Fruticosa (bastard indigo), was successfully cultivated in the more favorable hot and humid climate of South Carolina, USA.
New trade routes and use of forced labor for production dropped the price of indigo. Armies began using the dye for their uniforms. Napoleon’s Grande Armée used 150 tons per year starting in 1804.
Ultimately, the growing desire for the color fueled both colonialism and the African slave trade. Indigo was one of the first plants the British tried to grow in Jamestown in the 1600’s. Spoiler: They didn’t succeed. In fact, no one succeeded at indigo production in North America until Eliza Lucas, an 18th century teenage girl in South Carolina, gave it a go.
From Royal Robes to Working Class Wear – What’s in the Name?
In spite of its inferior yield false indigo found a huge market for itself with Genoa standing out as the single largest buyer. Genoa established lucrative trade ties with the rest of Europe where the demand for indigo dyed fabrics seemed insatiable. Over time Genoa became popular for its tough, rich blue fabric that was found to be an ideal workwear for miners, fishermen and longshoremen. French being a commonly spoken language in Europe during that time, this sturdy cloth came to be called Bleu de Gênes or Blue of Genoa. This term would later turn into the word jeans in English.
The Blue of Genoa also reached the French city of Nîmes known for its exceptionally talented weaver community. These weavers sought to create their own in-house version of the indigo dyed cloth from Genoa. Several experiments later they were able to create a similarly strong blue fabric. Both wool and silk were used to produce it. The warp yarn was treated with the indigo dye while the weft yarn stayed white. The result was a fabric that had two strikingly distinct surfaces. The deep blue surface of the cloth was kept facing the outside while the white/faint blue surface stayed inside. It became roaringly famous due to its exceptional durability and was named De (from) Nîmes or denim in English. Indigo dyeing had truly come full circle from producing fabrics that only the affluent elites could afford to robust wears that became the quintessential working men’s uniform.
Indigo’s Role in the Slave Trade
When Eliza Lucas was 16 (in 1738), her father went to fight in the Spanish Empire, leaving her in charge of the family plantation. Just the year before, Eliza had arrived in South Carolina from her English finishing school, and now was in charge of a 600-acre estate (with sixty slaves,) her little sister, and her ailing mother – who died shortly thereafter.
It became clear that the rice crop her family once relied on was not going to be enough to support everyone. Eliza’s father, who had been posted in Antigua in the Caribbean, started sending seeds.
First, he sent alfalfa, then he recommended ginger – both of which Eliza tried but neither of which did well. When he sent indigo, however, the family’s fortune began to change.
When Eliza Lucas started her business in 1745, the British were at war with the French and were looking for a new source for the nation’s favorite blue. Eliza was positioned to capitalize on the vacuum in the market. But it took a few years to get things going.
The first crop had been destroyed by frost, and the second season was even worse. The third crop was sabotaged by an indigo export competitor. The fourth crop was eaten by caterpillars, but finally, the fifth crop was just right.
Eliza gave seeds to her neighbors and offered them advice for starting their own crop. Her theory was that in order to establish an export market in South Carolina and have enough indigo to meet the needs of the British, she would need help. Her gamble worked.
Unfortunately, this story isn’t at all as happy as it sounds. The American colonies didn’t just create a thriving indigo market, along came the exploitation of enslaved people. Slavery wasn’t even legal in Georgia until indigo became the main export in South Carolina. By the 1700’s, the profits from indigo outpaced those from sugar and cotton. Indigo promptly became a cash crop, second only to rice, and the farmers started getting good earnings. The market rose from 5,000 pounds in 1746 to 130,000 pounds in 1748.
Indigo production would remain dependent on slave labor until German chemist Adolf von Baeyer began marketing the first synthetic indigo dye in 1880. By 1913, the synthetic dye had almost completely replaced the natural one.
Indigo and the Growth of Slave Labor
Eliza didn't figure out how to grow and process indigo – her slaves did. The import of African slaves began to ramp up in the southern colonies as a result of the indigo boom in the mid-18th century. In fact, one of the biggest indigo promoters of the time, Moses Lindo, who went to Charleston from England to act as inspector general of indigo coming out of the Port of Charleston, owned a slave ship called the Lindo Packet, with which he imported enslaved people from Barbados to Charleston. And the indigo fever and the dependence on slave labor that came with it didn't end in South Carolina.
‘The British governors in Georgia decided to legalize slavery to keep the indigo industry going.’
Georgia's ban on slavery ended in 1751, and by the beginning of the Revolutionary War, fifteen years later, the enslaved population of that state had grown to over 18,000. Though the American colonies winning their independence from Britain tanked the indigo market, it was quickly replaced by rice and cotton. For its part, England turned its attention to India for its indigo needs, where British colonists forced sharecroppers to grow indigo for hardly any money. The legacy of slavery followed indigo around until it was replaced by synthetic indigo in the early 20th century, when it slipped into obscurity.
Modern Impact
Indigo remained an important color in North America and around the world. Blue-collar workers wore indigo-dyed collars that showed less dirt than white collars (hence the term ‘blue-collar workers,’ which originated in the 1920’s).
In Japan and China, the dusty blue Mao suit contributed to indigo’s work-wear association.
In 1873, Jacob Davis and
Levi Straus applied the blue indigo dye to create their denim jeans in San
Francisco by the name of Levi’s. Chances
are, you’ve owned a pair yourself.
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Farmer’s
Indigo Coat, Japan, late 1800’s early 1900’s |
Can Indigo Be the Future of Sustainable Clothing?
These days, indigo dying is considered a curious historic oddity, but indigo has the potential to be part of the solution for the broken garment industry.
The chemical formula for natural and synthetic indigo are the same, but the synthetic dye has stuff like formaldehyde in it, and synthetic dyes are all petroleum based. The way we manufacture and dye clothes isn't good for people or the environment. And slavery is still a thing in the garment industry.
Blue or Feeling Blue
Blue is a positive color and considered the world’s safest color of choice. In Europe and North America, blue symbolizes authority, security and trust. This is one of the reasons why banks in the United States use blue as the main color of their company logos. It’s a peaceful and soothing color. But for some cultures, it represents sadness, loneliness and depression, thus you get ‘the blues.’
In other cultures, the color blue is used to repel evil and considered a symbol of healing. In Albania, Afghanistan, Iran, Greece and Turkey, it is a common belief that using blue amulets shaped like eyes will protect the wearer or user from the evil eye.
Blue is a symbol of spirituality, heaven and immortality in many cultures in the East. Ukraine uses blue as a symbol of good health while the Hindus associate the color blue with their god Krishna, which is a representation of divine joy and love and the destroyer of sin and pain. Followers of Judaism associate blue with divinity and holiness. Many Hindu Gods like Kaali and Krishna, the most highly worshipped Hindu gods who embodies love and joy, and destroys pain and sin, are portrayed in blue as it symbolizes the color of the cosmos. In many Middle Eastern countries, blue means safety and protection, and is symbolic of heaven, spirituality, and immortality.
In many cultures, blue is
a masculine symbol, thus blue things are associated with boys. But in China, it
is associated with women. In Latin American countries where the majority of the
population is Catholic, blue represents the Virgin Mary. It is also considered
as the color associated with wealth, good health and hope.
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We
also live on a blue planet |
Indigo Blue Touches Everything
Indigo was not just a financial success as a color, but a color that possessed some capabilities to stimulate particular moods or spirits. It is stated that those with an aura of indigo color have exceptional foreknowledge and deep intuitive perception. Duke Ellington even named one of his jazz pieces ‘Mood Indigo.’ Let’s leave it to your creativity to see whether indigo inspires you or not.
Indigo is a dye deeply embedded in cultures around the world. Indigo dyeing is both art and science and touches multiple disciplines, such as botany, chemistry, medicine, economics, politics, and fashion. We also can’t ignore the history of indigo because textiles reveal so much about cultural and social history. It has been recognized as the ‘king of dye’ for millennia, though today we’re most familiar with it as the coloring for blue jeans. The use of the plant’s blue dye for adornment, religious ritual, and as a symbol of political and social status occurred independently in cultures around the world.
Natural indigo has been used continuously for thousands of years. It is mentioned in the histories of Herodotus around 450 BCE, was a staple on early trade routes, and became a commercial force around 1500. The oldest known sample of indigo dyed fabric was identified in 2016 in Peru by researchers studying artifacts from earlier excavations. This 6,200-year-old blue fabric predates the ancient fabrics found in Egypt and the Middle East. Many cultures guarded their indigo secrets, which were layered with significance and symbolism. One can see why indigo is valued as an exceptional universal dye.
The science contained in the indigo plant and in the dye pot is fascinating. Organic chemists continue to study the unusual chemical structure of the plant, which bends or breaks some typical rules for dyeing. Why does indigo create fabrics that emerge yellow-green from the dye pot and then turn blue? And why is darker color achieved with more dips in the dye bath, rather than increasing the amount of dye? Indigo dyes both cellulose and protein fibers without needing a mordant – it’s magical indeed.
Multiple dye techniques and processes can be used with indigo, depending on its form. Some cultures form the indigo into balls, some into chunks, chips or fine powders. Indigo is available in so many forms, including freeze-dried crystals; they’re all waiting to be part of your next experiment.
There is so much to learn about the cultural history of indigo. How in the world did ancient artisans discover this unusual dye and figure out how to use it? No one knows for sure, but leaves crushed on the ground may have come into contact with urine or ash from a fire and produced the telltale blue.
The rich cultural tradition of indigo around the world often reflects unique methods, beliefs, and values surrounding color and pattern. Many cultures describe the origins of indigo in myths and stories. Often, ceremony surrounds the dyeing process with social significance that reveals indigo dyeing as much more than technique. It is an art form that has captured the imagination of the world.
In the End
Our love affair with the mysterious dark blue color is still going strong. Even more than 5,000 years after its discovery, we humans are still enthralled by indigo and wear it almost every day. And observe with fascination how the color changes continuously, fades, ages and wears away. Just like us.
Part Three: Blue Men of the Sahara
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The
Saharan daraa or boubou, a long loose gown, |
Dressed for harsh conditions
The garments' northern African origins can be traced back hundreds of years, as far as the 7th and 8th centuries, to the early times of the trans-Saharan trade between Sub-Saharan and North Africa. And while some locals will say the clothing symbolizes a shyness and modesty of the people, most agree that its basic function is to protect against the sun, as well as the frequent sandstorms of the region.
'The
style and shape of our daraa not only allows the right airflow in
these
difficult environments,
but also helps the Saharan men to conserve
body
water in the middle of the desert,’
Dahid Jdeidou, Mauritanian guide.
The Sahara's ‘Blue Men’
While the Haalpulaar (West-Africa ethnic group) might have established the indigo daraas, it was the Tuareg people who adopted and popularized the fashion, and are considered the ‘Blue Men of the Sahara’ – a name they eventually got because the color of their clothing rubbed off onto their skin while being under the hot sun.
According to Dr Anja Fischer, researcher of Saharan studies at the University of Vienna, the influence of the Haalpulaar led to big changes for Tuareg fashion. ‘Tuareg people used to wear leather clothes, and at some point, they switched to the blue fabrics they are mostly known for today.’
The Tuareg, who now inhabit a vast area stretching from Libya to Algeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, were traditionally one of the largest populations of nomads in the Sahara and were influential in the spreading of Islam in Africa. They were known across the Sahara, and the fashion style they adopted in Mauritania became recognized across North Africa, and later around the world. To this day, their fashion styles express their nomadic culture and traditions.
The Tuareg color is blue
- It represents the sky and symbolizes divinity in the Quran.
- Tuaregs usually smear indigo on their skin to protect themselves from the hot sun.
- Indigo is an insect repellant.
- It protects the Tuareg s from evil spirits.
Tuaregs are devout Muslims who defy some Muslim traditions. Women work side by side with men and command respect. Among the Tuareg the women have a great freedom and participate in family and tribal decisions. Descent and inheritance are both through the maternal line.
Courting practices are relaxed and surprisingly permissive, not only by stereotypical Muslim standards but also by Western ones. Women enjoy considerable freedom to spend time with young men, but pregnancy out of wedlock is frowned upon. Rape is virtually unheard of in Tuareg society, except when strangers are involved.
Boys don a turban and cover their faces at age 18 (some articles say 25 so I’m not sure which). The most striking attribute of the Tuareg is this indigo veil worn by the men, but not the women, giving rise to the popular name the Blue Men of the Sahara, or Men of the Veil.
Behind this ancient way of life is a culture so progressive it would even make some people in liberal western cultures blush. Women’s rights have been embraced. Women are allowed to have multiple sexual partners outside of marriage, keep all their property on divorce and are so revered by their sons-in-law that the young men wouldn't dare eat in the same room.
Families trace their line through the women and not the men, with women owning the tents and animals. Pre-nups and divorce are everyday – with parents throwing their recently separated daughters 'divorce parties'. Unlike in so many other cultures, women lose none of their power once they marry.
It is the men, and not the women, who cover their faces because 'The women are beautiful. We would like to see their faces,’ it’s that simple. Would you want to see more photos of these beautiful people, click here.
In my early twenties, I traveled to Morocco and stayed with Berbers for a few days while hiking in the Atlas Mountains. I was amazed by the welcome I received, mostly from the women who were ululating to one another across the valley to let each other know of my arrival; the way the children seemed so curious; and that the men were somewhat in the background. It was contrary to just about anything I’d ever witnessed before. After researching this post, it makes more sense to me now.
With the little English and French some could speak, I
understood that the blue dye was somewhat tattooed on their skin when the sand moved
by very high winds would pass through the cloth, pick up some of the dye, and
tattoo their skin with it. Seeing where
their skin is bluer, this could be a possibility, not just because they wear indigo
dyed clothing.
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Aljazeera, Indigo and the story of India’s blue
gold |
As I write this post, I am, once again, reminded of the fantastic knowledge that so many of the people who came before us had, and that instead of treating them as equal and great sources of information, we tragically made them sub-human slaves. A story sadly repeated so many times over the history of mankind. Will we ever learn?
Sources: Albuquerque
Museum
BBC Travel’s in Pictures
Dailymail.co.uk
Next: Beyond Van Gogh and Mundos de Mestizajes
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