(top illustration: William Simpson, An Indigo Factory in Bengal (1863)
I am currently completing a design project using yarn that has been dyed with natural indigo by my friends at Shilasdair. As I’ve knitted, I’ve often found myself thinking about the links between Scotland and natural indigo dye. Indigo isn’t, of course, a Scottish plant — it thrives in much warmer climates — so it might initially seem odd for me to pause to reflect on indigo’s specifically Scottish associations. But indigo’s tricky, uneven, and difficult threads of blue certainly have a Scottish story.
(indigo dyed yarn by Shilasdair)
In 1579, Richard Hakluyt foresaw the imperial benefits of expanding Britain’s range of dyestuffs:
“. . .for the cloth of the realm have no good vent if good dyeing be not added; therefore it is to be wished that the dyeing of foreign countries were seen, to the end that the art of dyeing may be brought into the realm.”
Hakluyt instructed navigators to “procure anyle” (indigo) and to pay close attention to the plant’s cultivation and dyeing processes. Indigo came to play a crucial role in the British imperial project, and many prominent Scots were involved in its cultivation in the slave colonies of the Caribbean and North America. James Grant of Ballindalloch, for example, established and developed indigo plantations in Florida, where he acted as colonial governor in the years prior to the American revolutionary war, before returning to Britain to serve as an MP. The huge profits Grant drew from the indigo grown on his estate were the direct result of slave labour: indigo is a tricky plant to produce and process, and it was estimated that four enslaved people were required for every five acres of the precious blue dye crop. Indigo’s value to Grant and other members of Scotland’s colonial elite is starkly illustrated by the fact that bushels of dye might be exchanged at auction for enslaved people of equivalent weight.
(seventeenth-century illustration of the processes involved in slave-produced indigo)
Colonial Scots profited from indigo grown by enslaved people on their Caribbean and North American plantations. And in India, indigo’s Scottish imperial story was similarly stark and brutal. Indigo cultivation and manufacturing had been established in Bengal and Bihar in the 1770s, and by the early decades of the nineteenth century, Britain’s Indian colonies had supplanted those in the Atlantic as the world’s principal indigo producing regions.
(illustration of Indian indigo production from Middleton’s Complete System of Geography (1779)
Just as in other areas of the British empire, Scots featured centrally in India’s imperial elite, being heavily overrepresented among colonial governors, officials, military personnel, and the new planter class whose economic precedence was increasingly visible in the wealth of Scotland’s growing cities and rural estates. The Indian indigo trade has 45 separate entries—more than tea, coffee, jute or any other imperial commodity—in the records of the careers of nineteenth-century attendees of the Edinburgh Academy, the prestigious independent school which educated Robert Louis Stevenson. And, by the middle of the nineteenth century, Indian indigo was clearly central to Glasgow mercantile interests too: for example, the gigantic and hugely profitable enterprise of James Finlay & Co was supported by income from the Moniarah Indigo Concern, which operated in Bihar until 1912.
(illustrations of indigo production in Bengal from popular British magazine, The Graphic (1887)
Even by nineteenth-century imperial standards, practices of growing, manufacturing, and profiting from indigo in India were appallingly exploitative and corrupt. Under pressure from planters, and a system that was legally enforced, Indian ryots (peasant cultivators) were compelled to dedicate their best land to an indigo monoculture, to the exclusion of rice or other useful crops. Bound by coercive and often fraudulent contracts; kept in a state of permanent poverty by the planter class’s fixed low prices; and oppressed by a colonial administration whose methods of control might routinely involve violence and sexual assault, the beautiful blue dyestuff which coloured the British empire’s textiles was produced under terrible, brutal conditions.
With overproduction and wildly fluctuating markets, indigo had become markedly less profitable by the mid 1850s, but Scottish planters continued to pass their losses on to the Indian cultivators they coerced to produce their crops. Forced to the brink of poverty and starvation, the ryots of Bengal could take indigo’s oppressive regime no longer. In 1859, they joined together in the resourceful, determined and co-operative resistance to British imperial rule which became known as the “indigo revolt.” After its violent suppression, a commission investigating the “blue mutiny” memorably informed the British public that there was “not a chest of indigo” from Bengal “that has not been stained with human blood.” And in the months and years that followed, Bengal’s indigo revolt gave voice to the overt questioning of colonial policy and rising nationalist sentiment, out of which the movement toward Indian independence emerged.
The growing and manufacture of natural indigo into a dyestuff is a laborious and costly process: a process which many eighteenth and nineteenth-century Scots turned into a profitable enterprise by exploiting the lives and labour of the peoples whom they colonised. By the end of the nineteenth-century, synthetic indigo had overtaken its plant-dyed form; imperial profits declined, and far fewer Scots were directly involved in indigo’s trade and manufacture.
Blue is very beautiful. In nature, it is an uncommon colour, and in the human world, it is especially prized. We are beguiled by blue. Blue flowers are rare, and blue foodstuffs non-existent. Blue is intimately bound up with our identities: it’s the colour of countless brands’ familiar logos and flags like the Scottish saltire. Blue can be ebullient, alluring, melancholy, inscrutable. In the words of Jenny Balfour Paul, indigo blue “echoes the infinite richness of the sea, the midnight sky, the shadowy dusk and early dawn, and represents the elusive seventh colour of the rainbow which some people simply cannot see.” Indigo blue is mercurial, dark and difficult: difficult to grow; difficult to manufacture; and notoriously difficult to dye with. As I knit with Shilasdair’s beautiful plant-dyed yarn, I bear in mind how that darkness and difficulty is written through indigo’s uneven Scottish story: a story of huge profits and terrible oppression, of imperial exploitation and colonial resistance.
Further reading
As a counterpoint to indigo’s imperial histories, Aboubakar Fofana’s work exploring West African indigo dye practices is both important and inspiring.
T.M Devine, Scotland’s Empire: The Origins of the Global Diaspora (2003) and Recovering Scotland’s Slavery Past (2015)
Douglas Hamilton, Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World, 1750-1820 (2005)
Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo (1998)
Catherine Mckinley, Indigo: in Search of the Colour that Seduced the World (2012)
hi, Kate, I wanted to find out about indigo after watching Julie dash’d film, daughters of the dust, where it keeps appearing!
and lighted on this essay, thank you, just what ‘I was looking for!
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Back in Malaysia my late mum used to use a specific flower to dye her specific sweet cakes /desert (Malay /chinese) it was only this flower that brings out the deep blue dye . Alot of people traditionally uses this flower in the old days before food colouring and paste existed . It’s an Interesting article as coming from a tropical climate there is quite a lot of plants that you can use for dyeing naturally. Guess which is why in Malaysia their Batik is quite beautiful in the east coast. Sorry I am getting a bit side track here .. 😊😅
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fascinating – thank you!
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Thank you for these wonderful posts. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with indigo so this one is fascinating!
Julie
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Thank you so much for this excellent post. I’m seconding the recommendation of Catherine Legrand’s book – she is also a collector of world textiles, and her collection was shown in Paris at the Hôtel de Sens and then in Clermont-Ferrand at the Musée Bargoin in 2015. That museum is actually one you might enjoy, as it specializes in textiles. The most recent one is dedicated to Ikats, and I’m thinking that’s one more book you would enjoy reading : Rémy Prin’s “Ikats, tissus de vie”. Lastly, the exhibition at the Musée Bargoin in 2016 was titles “Rebelles” and it was about all the ways that textiles express dissidence, from the Chilean arpilleras under Pinochet to embroidered handkerchiefs that are hung to dry banner-like, to be easily removed when the authorities come into Mexican villages.
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Thank you – this is interesting and information (and, as always, beautifully written!).
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I love these essays. So well written and informative. Thank you.
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Thank you for a very interesting and thoughtful article on the history of indigo. I had no idea about indigo’s colonial past and the human cost to produce this dye. Thank you for using your platform to provide this information and resources for further reading.
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your illustrated account of indigo is truly a treasure. thank you for it!
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Thank you for this. Indigo dying workshops are very popular at the moment here (Ontario) and while I have not had the time to participate, I will alert some friends who run the workshops to today’s blog so they can pass it onto their students.
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A fascinating post, thank you. I love blues, especially the soft shades from indigo dye, but had not been fully aware of its history.
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Absolutely fascinating. It is hugely important that we are now paying attention to, and considering reparations for, Scotland’s long involvement in slavery, and it was completely new to me that growing and processing dyestuffs was part of the picture. A valuable article.
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Really interesting post. Thank you.
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Pardon me if this gets posted twice. But what an interesting essay. I had no idea of Indigo’s checkered past. One of my favorite books, The Primary Colors-3 essays by Alexander Theroux, 67 pages are devoted to the color blue. Indigo is mentioned but not in a significant historical context. Regardless, the book is wonderful and is one I often give to artist friends. Thanks for this.
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I live in a small town in north east Victoria in Australia. Our local council is called Indigo . There is the Indigo Valley nearby with its Indigo Creek which I believe is named for the Indigo plant, which I had heard had been used for dying. Here we have coldish winters ( for Australia) but very hot summers. Will have to find out more about the history of the use of the plant in this area and keep an eye out for it growing. Thank you for sharing?
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Thanks for making visible the complex human history of this beautiful color.
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Thank you for such an informative post. I knew there was some “nasty” history linked to indigo but had no idea that the Scots were so involved.
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What a thoughtful post – I’ve come across most of this information before, but this is an excellent gathering and summing up. And some lovely illustrations.
I have a tub of Japanese indigo growing outside, among all the plants crammed in around my car park spot. Somehow, I must find time to either use it or prep it for later use before the weather gets too cool. I hope I can dye a sweater’s worth.
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I was introduced to all the different blues as a child listening to my LP of Dougal and the Blue Cat. Seek it out! Prussian Blue was my favourite because of the exotic name.
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Also a book by Catherine Legrand called Indigo, the Colour that Changed the World. Extraordinary history of how it came to be used around the world in Totally different places in about the same time! And the clothing……
very different from your post Kate but fascinating just the same. Thank you for that history.
I did just see those blue breads you mentioned Susan. Trying to get neighbors to grow some of the Butterfly Pea flowers.
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Thanks for this. Another suggestion for complementary reading is an enjoyable novel called The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd… Based on indigo production in the New World in the early-mid 1700s.
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The weather is so good that I am thinking about making an indigo vat – but for fabric! Fascinating history – thank you!
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Thank you for this very interesting and informative post.
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Fascinating! I have knit with indigo dyed fiber and found both my fingers and wooden needles were colored from it! That didn’t stop me one bit!
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It makes me ashamed to be British. Funnily enough, I’ve never been a lover of blue and anything in my life that is that colour has always been bought by someone else.
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Thanks so much for writing this. Fascinating – and shameful.
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Very informative post! Blue is my current color obsession, and I agree with a previous comment that the paler Shilasdair indigo is quite beguiling, indeed. In fact, these lines from Stephen Stills’s “Bluebird” keep running through my head: “You get all those blues/must be a thousand hues/and each is differently used…”. Thank you for the history lesson, fraught as it is with subjugation.
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My family lived in Ormond Beach Florida, where a wealthy neighborhood was build on an old Indigo plantation. The plantation mansion was still there, and I always wondered about the place. Thanks for the local history lesson and the story of the cost of this blue dye.
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Wow! Thank you for writing this and sharing with us. I have a DVD about indigo from Selvage magazine, but it doesn’t go into depth about the deep connections with colonial history and opression as does your essay. Wonderful illustrations included here too!
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I’m loving the shades of yarn – especially the pale one. Quite sublime.
Wanted to show you the bread made by our local organic sourdough bakery in Abbey St Bathans. It’s made with Butterfly Pea flour and is naturally bright blue! Hope the pics come out ok.
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I have had Butterfly pea icecream in Singapore. It get used in lots of food there.
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Thank’s for sharing the past of the Indigo!
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