Dating a Jacket, Part 1

The Eighteenth-Century Assumption

Part 2 here

Sometimes you come across a piece of clothing and the date just seems a little too ambiguous. That was the case with this jacket, number 1981.314.2, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is said to be from the 2nd quarter of the 18th century. The good people at the Costume Institute within the Met were kind enough to take detailed photos of the jacket for me, including details of construction. These images were invaluable in allowing me to create my own version, but have also given me some questions about their chosen date. I am not allowed to share the images they took for me without express permission, so if necessary I will include photos from my own jacket.

First, let us remind ourselves of what the jacket looks like:

Left: jacket, Italian, 1981.314.2. Dated 2nd quarter 18th c. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Right: my own recreation of the same jacket.

The Met gives the original jacket a moderately wide date range of 2nd quarter of the 18th century, so between 1725 and 1750. And I can see what influenced them to make that decision. At first glance, the overall shape has strong similarities with the examples below of wide-necked riding jackets.

Left: Casaquin, textile 1710-1720, garment 1720-1730. Right: Casaquin, c. 1730-1740. Both from Palais Galliera

Left: Agnieszka Emercjanna Pociej ascribed to Ádám Mányoki, before 1722. Right: Lucy Pelham-Holles by Godfrey Kneller, 1722.

Left: Sophie Marie von Voss by Antoine Pesne, 1746-1751. Right: Maria-Antonia von Fürstenberg by Franz Josef Weiss, 1758.

Please note, however, that regional fashion changes do exist and none of the examples are Italian. I could not find any images of similar jackets from Italy. If anyone does have images of riding habits/jackets from Italy in the first half of the 18th century, I'd love to see them! However, these images do show at least a moderate geographic distribution of this trend: France, Germany (Prussia and Swabia), England, and Poland. All of the examples feature a wider neckline than the close-to-the-neck style found in men's coats and in some other women's riding jackets, and also feature metallic trim embellishing the front and cuffs. So far, so good, right? Well--let's dig deeper.

Dating the Jacket Part 2

The Case for the 17th Century

Part 1 here.

In Part 1, I compared my riding jacket to some early/mid-18th century examples, contemporary to the time which the Met Costume Institute gives for the original. I appreciate how the Met came to this decision, but while getting close-up experience constructing my own, I began having questions about that date range. In this part, I will show some strong similarities it shares with earlier styles of the 1670s and 1680s. First, a reminder of the jacket in question:

Jacket, Italian, 1981.314.2. dated 2nd quarter 18th c. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here are some of the characteristics of the jacket that it has in common with jackets from the 1670s-1680s.

There is a large caveat, however, that none of the examples I have seen show a wide neckline. Most necklines are either obviously cut close to the neck or are obscured by hair and cravats, but are still almost certainly cut to the neck given that the role of cravats is to hold the neck of a shirt closed. "Floating cravats" aren't really a thing here.

So I suppose the question I'm asking here is: are the other details of decoration and construction I'm explaining here persuasive enough to overcome other factors, like the neckline and the Met's own dating? Let's begin!

Here's the painting I saw that really made me think "wait...am I onto something?"

Mary of Modena by Simon Verelst, c. 1675.

This isn't an isolated incident either, as you can see from the two images below--one of them actually from Italy!

Left: Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate by Louis Ferdinand Elle the Younger, c. 1675. Right: Noblewoman attributed to Pierfrancesco Cittadini, before 1681.

These three women are wearing a version of the justaucorps, which emerged as part of men's fashion in the 1660s, eventually replacing the doublet. Since women's riding jackets of this period were so closely modeled on men's, I think it makes sense to look to men's jackets for information on style and construction, especially since, to the best of my knowledge, there are no extant women's riding jackets for me to access and compare.

In this early version of a justaucorps, you can see some of the shared features with my jacket: numerous buttons along the front, side, and back vents, narrow horizontal pockets, and unpleated skirts:

Man's coat, 1660-1675, Palais Galliera

Here is what Norah Waugh had to say in The Cut of Men's Clothes, 1600-1900:

She further adds that in in the 1690s cuffs and sleeves began getting cut seperately, and skirts started being pleated around the start of the 18th century. To illustrate this point, here is a comparison of the diagrams she made for a 1681 coat compared to a 1720s coat--the period in which the Met partially dates their jacket.

Left: page 59, diagram XV. Right: page 64, diagram XVIII. Both in Waugh, Cut of Men's Clothes, 1964.

In addition to the changes mentioned above, you also see the disappearance of the side-vent buttons and buttonholes, buttons being spaced further appart, and a larger, shaped pocket flap. Speaking of pockets...

This jacket is the result of more than 2 and a half years of work, entirely handsewn! It represents the interest in equestrian and equestrian-inspired clothing as fashionable attire in Europe during the late 17th and into the 18th centuries.

I copied it from a jacket held by the Met Costume Institute, accession number 1981.314.2. When I emailed out to them for more information about the jacket, one of the collections people was even kind enough to pull it out of storage and take some detailed shots of the exterior AND interior (thanks Marci!!!)

The Met dates it to the 2nd quarter of the 18th century which could be true--but there are several features of this jacket that could easily be dated earlier to the late 17th century, like the button size and layout. I plan to mull over this more in a later post. At least, I would definitely place it in the earlier end of that 1725-1750 range. However, I chose to style it for the 1730s/1740s because it's Fun For Me 🙂!

One of the most fun parts was gathering accessories to go with the jacket! I steamed a wool hat blank into the tricorn shape and applied the silver trim, made some detachable undersleeves based on paintings by Pietro Longhi, and threw together a matching neck ribbon as if I was some kind of ornamental poodle

aah thank you it was so fun to make! I got the gold and lapis filler beads just from Michael's, and the ducks and axes were from two different Etsy shops. Duckies were from NobleBeadsShop. I got the carnelian and black jade duckies because they were pretty, and I didn't feel like taking an extra hour to research what stones would be used in Minoan jewelry (besides lapis i did need that somewhere). The axe heads were from BeadWorldSeattle. I chose them because they reminded me of the double-headed axe/labrys so important in Minoan culture, but in jewelry beads this shape would more likely be intended to emulate papyrus plants instead. As long as it looks good!

I used a toggle clasp to fasten the necklace--no idea if that's historically accurate or not but it's MY favorite necklace fastener. Call it...historically plausible.

The hardest part was turning the duck beads into pendants--the Saffron Goddess duckies are strung through front-to-tail, but my beads were drilled through top-to-bottom.

My solution was to thread head pins through the ducks, anchored with a small gold bead at the bottom, and then use tweezers to roll the top of the pin into an eye that I could thread onto a string. When all assembled, they looked like this:

With that done, all that was left was to decide my pattern and string them all together! Oh--and I then went back later and strengthened the knots at the end with a small dab of Beadalon cement to make sure they didn't come loose and fling duckies everywhere :(. I find making jewelry very soothing and only wish I had the opportunity to do more of it, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my perfect adorable ducky necklace <3

Great screenshot! The saffron goddess fresco is one of my favorites because of how detailed the accessories are. My ducky necklace was inspired by the one she has!

Minoan Heanos

The distinctive open-front dresses worn by Minoan women are probably even more iconic than the multi-layered kilts. Over time, there's dispute whether the garment is one piece or a separate bodice and skirt, but currently the one-piece theory is in ascendance.

The word heanos is derived from the Linear B logogram *146, wehanos. The wes- prefix, which is the squiggle in the middle, indicates a garment. Bernice Jones believes that this logogram represents the garment worn by Minoan men and women.

Marie-Louise B. Nosch, The Textile Logograms in the Linear B Tablets, pp 133-138

More research and construction below the cut:

Minoan Kilt

The large, structural skirt worn by Minoan women in art is instantly recognizable, and when I made my own I combined current best guesses with my own personal tastes.

My kilt shape follows the hypothesis laid out by Bernice Jones in her book Ariadne's Threads: The Construction and Significance of Clothes in the Aegean Bronze Age. She describes the shape of that of a labrys, a double-headed axe with apparent ceremonial significance in Ancient Minoan culture. This garment may be depicted in Linear-B logogram *166 + we, we-being the backwards-s-shaped squiggle in the center which identifies the piece as a garment.

See pages 336 and 341 in Marie-Louise B. Nosch, The Textile Logograms in the Linear B Tablets

Actual details on construction and materials below the cut:

Thanks for writing in! Sorry about the wait, I decided to overexplain instead of just telling you. Bernice Jones, the most prolific scholar on ancient Minoan and Mycenaean fashions, has called this garment a heanos, identifying it as Linear-B logogram *146

mmmm, crunchy crunchy PDF

The squiggle in the center is the we- syllable, used to indicate a garment. This logogram is called we-a2-no/wehanos, which became the Ancient Greek ἑανός meaning a robe, which is latinized into heanos. You may or may not care about that etymology, but I thought it was neat!

However, I think that just calling it a dress or shift or tunic is absolutely acceptable when speaking in a modern context to people who would prefer not to wade into Linear-B.

I'm almost finished working on a post about my wrap skirt, and once that's published I'll start working on a post about my heanos, promise <3

How I accessorized my Minoan costume. For the jewelry, my main priority was to have fun with it! I played around with different bead layouts, shapes, and lengths, loosely based on what I'd already seen from art and artifacts. The ducky necklace is one of my favorite things I've made in a while!

How to put on a Minoan wrap skirt! It's...pretty straightforward. If you can wear a towel, you can wear this! You can just tie the belt without rolling down the top (or just roll without the belt) but I think this gives more security and the added bulk around the hips matches Minoan figurines and makes the waist look smaller proportionally. Most of our remaining frescoes are from Thera and therefore may or may not be representative of how these garments were worn in the rest of the Minoan hegemony.

Eventually I'll put together some more in-depth posts but I do have a full time job so it'll take a little while. I'll be posting another video soon showing my accessorizing!

My most recent make is this ancient Minoan ensemble! It consists of a tunic (heanos) worn under a flounced wraparound skirt shaped like a double-bladed axe (labrys). Despite how heavy the linen skirt is, the entire outfit is surprisingly easy to move around in. I even waded into the river to rescue a bee!

Hot Girl Activities

My naym is catte And wen the ball Is at an ende Or eve'ning fall I haf no tyme To be allure No one can se I monch the fleur

A scarlet wool waistcoat and cochineal dye

Bright red is surely one of the most iconic colors of 18th-century fashion. From girls in their cardinal cloaks to British soldiers in their red coats, it is hard to imagine any scene in the American colonies devoid of some touch of this color. The natural world offers several sources of red dye, but cochineal may well have had the most profound effect. The Nahuatl name for cochineal is nocheztli, from nochtli (nopal cactus) and eztli (blood) (Wallert 60). The highest-quality dye came from the domesticated grana fina insect, a cousin of the wild grana silvestre (Marichal 259). By the time of the Spanish conquest, Indigenous peoples in Mexico had spent centuries perfecting the raising and preparation of cochineal insects. Cochineal reached Spain by 1523 and was quickly recognized as a valuable dyestuff for the European market, where quality red was always in high demand (Marichal 256).

The cultivation of cochineal was a way for the Indigenous people of Oaxaca and Mixteca to preserve their own communities and cultures. The tending of the nopal cacti and the cochineal beetles was labor-intensive, best-suited for communal or backyard plots tended by family members (Baskes 192-193). This production did not lend itself to economies of scale—only in the 18th century did large haciendas emerge producing cochineal, and even then this was a miniscule proportion of the total supply compared to the cochineal produced by small-scale Indigenous growers (Donkin 28). This enabled much of the land in Oaxaca to remain in native hands, and Oaxacans defended these land rights greatly. One suit, brought by Indigenous cofraidas against the Dominicans of San Hipolito Martir over ownership of two sitios, lasted almost the entire 18th century (Hamnett 55). Indigenous cochineal growers could safeguard their own customs and ways of life to an extent because cochineal production could not be easily appropriated by colonizers.

Cochineal was produced within the repartimiento system, in which growers would be offered credit Current scholarship indicates that the colonial Spanish repartimiento de bienes (not to be confused with the practice of drafting Indigenous labor for colonial projects called the repartimiento de indios) was not the exploitative system that earlier scholars assumed, but made credit available to a population who otherwise would not be able to access it.The average loan was 9 pesos in exchange for 6 future pounds of cochineal insects, a rate of 1.5 pesos per pound regardless of the market price (Baskes 204-205). The loan contained no additional interest beyond the advance price, which was below market rate (Baskes 197). If the price of cochineal was particularly high one harvest, however, some growers might sell the entirety at market at a higher price and claim that all the insects had been “lost” in inclement weather and could not be used to repay the loan (Baskes 201). Collecting the owed cochineal could be difficult for Spanish officials—Indigenous growers just had to outlast the alcalde’s usual 5-year term and the debt obligation would likely be forgotten (Baskes 195). 

Production of cochineal for the European market enabled Indigenous producers to preserve their communities and culture, but this also came at the expense of greater ties between different communities. Because of the labor demands caused by increased cochineal cultivation under Spanish rule, people tended to stay close to their own households, strengthening the bonds within individual villages at the expense of intercommunal ties with other areas (de Ávila B 95).

Any monoculture will have its pitfalls, and one of the drawbacks of cochineal production during the colonial era was the decline of food production. Before the Spanish conquest, inhabitants of the Mixteca Alta used terracing to grow food along the hill- and mountain-sides (Rodriguez 345). Afterwards, a combination of depopulation and altered land use caused many of these formerly fruitful terraces to fall into disrepair. Farmers focused on cochineal production and grazing livestock, the latter of which contributed to erosion of these terraces (Rodriguez 345-346). The cultivation of cochineal at the expense of food production was noted as early as 1579 (Donkin 29). Cochineal production represented the preservation of some forms of local knowledge, but the marginalization of others like how to coax food out of the hilly terrain.

Europeans were very reluctant to recognize the centuries of expertise that Indigenous Mexicans had developed to perfect their cultivation of cochineal. One Spanish writer in about 1600 even claimed that the Indigenous Oaxacans had to be taught how to produce cochineal by Dominican missionaries (Donkin 23)—nevermind that those missionaries had initially tried to encourage Oaxacans to cultivate silkworms instead of their traditional cochineal (Greenfield 92). Europeans also regarded the domesticated grana fina insects as a sort of divine providence, a gift from nature enabling them specifically to make more vibrant reds than they had ever known in the Old World (Greenfield 85). The reality that native inhabitants of Mexico had spent centuries improving cochineal insects to produce better dye than their wild counterparts went unacknowledged. 

There was also debate for over a century about what exactly cochineal was. Consultation of such sources as the Bible and microscopes were largely inconclusive. The Spanish had finally determined that cochineal was an insect by the end of the 16th century, but the rest of Europe remained skeptical (Greenfield 132). Ultimately in the early 18th century, Europeans were finally able to conclude that cochineal was in fact an insect after a group of gentlemen collected the testimony of local Oaxacan growers (Greenfield 161). Apparently, the knowledge of Indigenous cultivators could finally be recognized once all other options were exhausted.

Europeans enthusiastically used cochineal dye to enhance their own fashions, but restricted the ability of Indigenous peoples, as well as other non-white inhabitants of New Spain, to profit from cochineal outside of the repartimiento credit system. Regulations in New Spain issued in the 1560s and 70s restricted the dying of cochineal to high-quality cloth, done only by Spanish artisans (Donkin 28). In 1580, the viceroy banned Black and mixed-Black vendors from trading cochineal, and allowed Indigenous Mexicans to sell cochineal only if they were the servants of a Spaniard (Greenfield 103). Cochineal was valuable as a European luxury item, and as such non-white people could be allowed to be visible only as representations of subservience.

The production of cochineal into the 19th century, particularly in Oaxaca, was inextricable from Indigenous ownership and land use. This persistence and protection of traditions in the face of colonial exploitation can still be seen in the woven and embroidered textiles produced by Indigenous Mexican artisan. Today, Indigenous crafters from Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico have to fight for their artistry to be recognized as their own, unique expressions of culture and heritage. The designs of Mixe, Chinanteco, and Zapotec weavers and embroiderers have been plagiarized by major fashion labels like Zara and Carolina Herrera (Fuentez López). This constant appropriation by clothing brands represents a continuation of a centuries-long practice of Western fashion being dependent upon the creativity, innovation, and expertise of Indigenous producers while barring them from greater recognition. Similar to how Indigenous Mexicans were restricted from involvement in the fashionable cochineal industry beyond cultivating the insects, the value of Indigenous production is seen primarily as its ability to be reused or resold for fast fashion.

Muskrat fur cuffs and the North American fur trade

In this post, I am focusing my research on the fur trade up to the mid 18th century. On a superficial level, this is because the armlets in question are based on a 1732-35 painting. But, more importantly, any attempt to expand beyond this using this format would be far too limited to responsibly grapple with the history. In addition, the end of the French and Indian wars in 1763 resulted in changing fur trade dynamics which would not be easily integrated into the research I have been able to do. There are many facets I had to leave out like religion, trading posts, and more, simply because a comprehensive history of the fur trade, even before 1763, is a book topic, not an Instagram one. For this post, I chose to focus largely on the material aspect--tangible goods and how they were experienced by Indigenous communities as both suppliers of pelts and consumers of trade items. The latter slides will also look into human relationships and enduring consequences as much as space will allow.

“Indigenous” in this post is a catch-all descriptor that tries to encompass a vast variety of different nations who had varying contacts and concerns within the early fur trade. In the north, Hudson’s Bay Company traded primarily with Cree, Dene, Inuit, and Assiniboine groups (Chan 79). The Great Lakes region was dominated by Anishinaabe groups, including the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi (Warren 124). In the Ohio River Valley, trade was largely divided among the Miami, Wyandot, and Shawnee (Sleeper-Smith, Indigenous Prosperity 95). Additional fur trading occurred along the southern British colonies as well, but I did not find scholarship that has covered it to the same extent. The history of the North American fur trade, at least in its earlier decades, challenges the paternalistic idea that Indigenous groups were helpless against the arrival of Europeans and their trade goods, as if European culture was so potent that mere proximity was enough to degrade centuries-old traditions. Rather, Indigenous peoples used their knowledge of the land, access to pelts, and kinship networks to enter into the trade on their own terms and use it to further their own material and cultural ends.

While the fur trade was dominated by beaver pelts, Native American trappers caught and traded a variety of pelts. Muskrat made up a fairly minor part of the overall trade, but still had moments of demand. In the Ohio River Valley, the muskrat fur trade grew as a result of beaver pelt oversupply in the late 17th century. Between 1696 and 1716, indigenous peoples in the valley developed a fur trade that focused on pelts like muskrat, otter, raccoon, and marten. These pelts had become more valuable as trade goods, and more prized in the European market, because of the drop in beaver prices (Indigenous Prosperity 192-194). Further north, the Hudson’s Bay Company acquired an estimated 6000-7000 pelts annually between 1710 and 1725, 15,200 pelts in 1739 and 24,600 pelts in 1750 (Obbard 1015). Notably, this rise towards the middle of the 18th century corresponds to both an overall boom in the fur trade in the 1730s, and a drop in beaver trade by 1750, both factors that would encourage the trapping of muskrat (Carlos 111-112). 

European traders were highly sensitive to the material preferences of their counterparts. Indigenous trappers and their families had very specific standards for trade goods. Cloth is the most significant example of this. European textile mills produced cloth specifically for Native consumers, with close attention to color, pattern, and weight (Levine). The importance of cloth also highlights the extent to which the European goods provided in the trade shifted fairly quickly from utilitarian goods to luxury items. Silver, for instance, was in such high demand even as early as the late 17th century that it actually endangered the currency supply in New France as French traders sought to melt down silver coins into tradeable items (Indigenous Prosperity 193). For Indigenous artisans, especially women, this influx of luxury European goods offered opportunities to enhance their own artistry. Native women used cloth and its attendant sewing implements, beads and trim, to create elaborate beadwork and patterns on clothing, creating exquisite wearable artwork with deeply meaningful expressions of their own cultures (Indigenous Prosperity 175). Indigenous relationships with European trade goods were highly transformative. Even old kettles were taken apart and transformed into jewelry and other items of personal adornment. Indigenous consumers readily adapted trade goods into their own cultures, rather than performing a simple 1:1 replacement of traditional goods and ways of life for European ones.

In 1852, William Whipple Warren wrote a history of the Ojibwe, his mother’s people, based on oral histories he collected. The accounts in this history accord with a general impression that the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries was actively managed by and productive for the indigenous participants, rather than reducing Native peoples to mere clients of European trading houses. The book includes several anecdotes that depict the fur trade as a way for the Ojibwe to further their own personal and national goals, especially in relation to other Indigenous groups. One story recounts an Ojibwe hunter who, after his family was massacred by enemy O-dug-am-ee (Fox/Meskwaki), trapped for pelts until he had enough to convince the French to help him get revenge (Warren 153). In instances like this, European traders were used as tools by indigenous operators rather than the other way around. The Ojibwe also used the fur trade for their own territorial ends. Through trade, they acquired weapons with which to fight against the Dakota/Santee Sioux, pushing them out of favorable grounds (Warren 160, 178). The Ojibwe thus gained yet more opportunities to trap valuable pelts for the fur trade (Warren 126-127). In this instance, as in many others, the fur trade with Europeans had markedly different effects on different Indigenous nations.

The histories also specifically highlight the difference between French and English traders, praising the French for their respect of Ojibwe customs and integration into Ojibwe communities, which later English and American settlers bypassed in favor of assimilation and domination (Warren 132). Successful integration into Native communities and kinship networks was crucial for the success of early European fur traders. For one thing, European traders were largely dependent on Indigenous communities to provide them with food (Sleeper-Smith, Women Kin & Catholicism 429). Indigenous women in particular attained importance for their role in agricultural production and through their ability to create profitable trade relationships for both sides through marriage (Women Kin & Catholicism 430). Warren’s history gives an example of the centrality of women in the fur trade when he mentions the Ojibwe wife of French trader Jean Baptiste Cadotte, who was notable for the influence she could sway over her extended family (Warren 213). The influence from these kinship networks enabled Cadotte to convince the Ojibwe of Lake Superior to stay out of Pontiac’s rebellion, keeping them from being destroyed like some other tribes that had gotten involved in European wars (Warren 211).

An overview of this trade, no matter how general, still has to acknowledge the enduring negative consequences that have been wrought by the presence and encroachment of white colonists into Indigenous spaces. The North American fur trade evolved into something much more exploitative with the European occupation of Indigenous peoples’ traditional territories and the proliferation of unfair treaties. For instance, the accounts of the early fur trade in Warren’s oral history of the Ojibwe were colored by the tellers’ awareness of the negative impact that contact with European settlers had ultimately caused by the 19th century. Guns and alcohol are singled out as the most significant trade goods, reflecting the compounding detrimental effect that these items had Native populations in later decades (Warren 119). In addition, even benign contact with European groups carried exposure to devastating diseases like smallpox. The disruptions caused to Indigenous communities by disease, warfare, and European settlement affected traditional supplies and made them more reliant on a fur trade that was increasingly stacked against indigenous traders.

A 1972 documentary called “The Other Side of the Ledger: An Indian View of the Hudson's Bay Company” describes how the Hudson Bay Company exploited Indigenous fur traders into the modern day. The company traded for furs on unequal terms, and Indigenous trappers were unable to try to trade elsewhere for more favorable terms because for many remote communities, the Hudson Bay Company stores were the only nearby sources of food. These supplies were sold at high mark-ups, forcing customers to buy on credit. This crediting system kept Indigenous communities in perpetual debt to the Hudson Bay Company, as their principal provider of food and buyer of pelts. The particular involvement of the Hudson Bay Company in operating these stores ended in 1987 (Gismondi), but even today food insecurity remains high among Native families living on reservations, owing to limited and expensive groceries and low incomes. The early years of the fur trade held promise as a zone of cultural and economic exchange in which Indigenous participants were often equal, at times dominant, partners in trade. Nevertheless, contact with European traders initiated a perpetual drive for settlement, territorial expansion, and the attendant marginalization of Native peoples in their own lands by European colonizers.

Works Cited:

Further Reading

A cotton-print dress and Logwood dye

This brown cotton print is a reproduction from a gown in Colonial Williamsburg’s collection (Gown no. 2004-97). While I am still uncertain of whether this dress was originally purple or dyed with logwood, I have chosen that print for this project because:

Logwood is a type of dyewood used in the 17th and 18th centuries to produce a wide range of dyes, particularly purples and blacks. It was highly sought-after by European nations for their growing textile industries (Newton 16). By Europeans first encountered logwood in the 1550s, when Spaniards waged campaigns against Maya on the Yucatan peninsula (Offen 113). Scholarship largely focuses on British harvesting一British interests in logwood lead to the creation of British Honduras, later Belize. European powers also tried growing logwood elsewhere. The British and French planted logwood in Jamaica, Haiti, and other Caribbean islands, and by the end of the 18th century they had even planted logwood in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (Offen 113). Logwood thus became another product with which colonizers transformed other landscapes for their own profit.

In the 17th century, logwood became a significant component of colonizer economies in the Caribbean. In 1679 in Jamaica, one government paper recorded a sugar export of 7637.75 tons, unsurprisingly the largest export on the table. The second largest export, however, was logwood, at 5119 tons (”Account of Passengers”). Logwood was primarily sold by British “Baymen,” who operated illegally in Spanish Yucutan and Belize. Baymen along the Yucutan Peninsula and Bay of Honduras lead a marginal existence. They relied on their nearby indigenous allies, the Miskito, to aid in protection (Newton 25). But this was not the only way in which the British used indigenous groups. In order to support their logging, they raided nearby Maya villages, enslaving men, women, and children (Bialuschewski 49). Women were forced to stay in the loggers’ camps, while men and children were exported elsewhere, to places including Jamaica and New York (Bialuschewski 50). 

British colonial interests in enslaved Maya waned as the Maya abandoned their nearby villages and the events of King Philip’s war in New England curtailed the market for indigenous slaves overseas (Bialuschewski 49, 51). Nevertheless, the Baymen’s commercial enterprise was still reliant on forced labor. Proximity to British islands in the Caribbean meant that logwood providers along the peninsula and the bay could access a steady stream of enslaved Africans, with Jamaica as the main source (Restall 400). They acquired further enslaved men and women by trading with other merchants, like the Dutch (Newton 29). With an enslaved labor force, exportation of logwood continued to increase. By 1755, Baymen were exporting 13,000 tons of logwood annually (Offen 121-122). By the end of the 18th century, Belize had become a territory wholly dependent on the wood cut by enslaved individuals, who made up ¾ of the total population (Restall 400). 

The logging industry’s existence within the Spanish Empire, far from the protection of English imperial forces, continued to be a source of instability. This instability disproportionately fell on the enslaved African men and women forced to harvest the dyewood. British logging settlements were sites of frequent skirmishes with the Spanish. These skirmishes often took the form of raids in which Spanish forces would seize the enslaved men who worked on Baymen’s operations (Restall 389). But the proximity of Spanish settlements also presented opportunity; enslaved individuals could escape to these settlements claiming their desire to convert to Catholicism, thus having themselves declared free in Spanish territory (Restall 391). 

The British merchants who profited from enslaved production of marketable logwood also found advantage in pursuing religion. In 1727, a group of Baymen offered to donate logwood to Christ Church in Boston, so that the church could benefit from its sale (Newton 15-16). In thanks, the church council had a lavish pew built for them, right next to the pulpit (Newton 16). Over the next 30 years, more than 80 baymen continued donating logwood to Christ Church, assuring that they retained pride of place in the church’s social hierarchy (Newton 17). Patronage of this church acted as a sort of reputation laundering, in which these merchants, scarcely better than buccaneers, illegally harvesting logwood on the fringes of the Spanish empire, could refashion themselves as respectable British gentlemen. Christ Church was also called Old North Church. That was the same church  immortalized in Revolutionary War lore as the sight of the “One if by land, two if by sea” in the journey of Paul Revere. The exploitation of Black and indigenous labor for fashionable dyes therefore has a direct link to one of the most famous popular narratives of the American Revolution.

Logwood presented a unique opportunity for the Thirteen Colonies because it presented a loophole to the resented mercantilist system. Since logwood was harvested outside of the British empire, traders could avoid customs and taxation (Rossano 240). Merchants from New York and New England acted as important middlemen in the logwood trade between the Bay of Honduras and Europe (Newton 19, Rossano 229), and they found the logwood trade to be a convenient source of revenue to offset the cost of desired consumer goods (Rossano 229). Thus, colonial consumers of European imports could still benefit from the exploitation of enslaved labor and disruption of indigenous communities along the Yucatan peninsula, even if they themselves were not directly involved in the logwood trade, or even if they weren’t purchasing logwood-dyed textiles.

Works Cited:

Further Reading:

A Pierrot Jacket and the Pursuit of French Fashion in the Americas

I've decided to start a new project in which I take historical pieces I've made, select one element, and expand upon that element's greater historical context...For me, pierrot jackets are the quintessential French style of the late 18th century and I'm based in the US, so I decided to do a reflection on French fashion in the Americas, specifically French colonies, and how it was intertwined with French women's enslavement and control of Black women.

Most of the information in this post is from Karol K. Weaver's "Fashioning Freedom: Slave Seamstresses in the Atlantic World.

What does it mean to wear French fashions in the western hemisphere? Enslavers, planters, and merchants in St. Domingue, both French-born and Creole, pursued French fashion even as the hot climate and the innovations of free women of color created unique styles. Their pursuit of fashion was facilitated by the enslavement of Black men and women, both in the wealth produced by plantations and the labor of enslaved seamstresses.

Like in British colonies, French colonists purchased goods from the mother country, including the means to create fashionable dress. In the March 28, 1768 edition of Les Affiches Americaines , Saint Domingue's newspaper, a tailor named Brohan placed a notice in among the advertisements for plantations and enslaved men and women (vol 12. p100-3). Brohan was fresh from Paris, and he offered dressing gowns, ribbons, hats, thread, and silk, among various other items.

French women attempted to enforce their stylistic supremacy within St. Domingue, even as they appropriated Black fashions, by pressuring officials to restrict the types of dress that free women of color could wear, such as mandating headscarves and forbidding silk (Weaver 51). French fashions became a tool for white colonists to enforce a visual system of inferiority when they felt threatened by the prominence of free women of color.

Some enslavers even sent or brought their enslaved seamstresses to France in order to learn French fashions and methods (Weaver 48). By doing so, French women of the Caribbean actively used their slave-owning status as a way to increase their connection to the French mainland. Their aspirations to French elite status and fashioning was inextricable from their enslavement of Black women.

Enslaved men and women brought to France during the 18th century had the opportunity to sue for freedom when they arrived on French soil (Peabody 6-7). They might also be manumitted, as enslavers attempted to retain their services rather than let them be sent back to the colonies by French officials (Peabody 135). Enslaved seamstresses brought to France could therefore force their own freedom, subverting their mistresses' attempts to enhance their own status as fashionable elite slaveowners.

Enslaved seamstresses and laundresses who remained in French colonies took revenge where they could. A French mistress’s fine wardrobe could be continually marred by torn fabric, missing buttons, and other injuries--the “accidents” from enslaved women’s washing and ironing (Weaver 54). Seamstresses could self-liberate themselves and run away, using their skills to support themselves in urban centers among other free women of color (Weaver 54).

The presence of French fashion in the Americas was coupled with the exploitation of enslaved individuals. French women in the colonial Caribbean sent their enslaved seamstresses to train in cities in the colonies or France itself. Colonial women further used style as a way to mark themselves as a way to mark themselves as superior by reserving certain elements of dress for whites only. Despite this, their pursuit of fashion enabled enslaved seamstresses to assert their own power, either by taking their own freedom or sabotaging their mistresses' clothing.

Works cited:

Further reading:

Potofsky, A. "Paris-on-the-Atlantic from the Old Regime to the Revolution." French History 25.1 (2011): 89-107

Skeehan, Danielle C. "Caribbean Women, Creole Fashioning, and the Fabric of Black Atlantic Writing." The Eighteenth Century 56, no. 1 (2015): 105-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24575132.