WEBVTT - How Did Indigo Help Start America's Slave Trade?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren vog O bomb here. There was a time,

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<v Speaker 1>not all that long ago, that if you wanted your

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<v Speaker 1>toga or whatever to be a different color, you'd have

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<v Speaker 1>to go find something in nature to die it with,

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<v Speaker 1>maybe mud or a more refined mineral, maybe some insects,

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<v Speaker 1>or maybe the seed, flower root or leaves of a plant.

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<v Speaker 1>Before eighteen fifty six, when a teenaged British chemist named

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<v Speaker 1>William Perkins accidentally formulated the first synthetic dye while trying

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<v Speaker 1>to find a cure for malaria um. He produced Mua vine,

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<v Speaker 1>which is an intense purple color. Harvesting natural resources for

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<v Speaker 1>dyes was a big deal. Perkins discovered the means of

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<v Speaker 1>making purple cheaply and in large quantities. Before that, purple

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<v Speaker 1>dye was very precious. The most reliable source was to

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<v Speaker 1>extract it from the desiccated mucous gland of a sea snail.

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<v Speaker 1>Blue was easier to come by and useful because it

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<v Speaker 1>could be mixed with other colors to make purples and greens.

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<v Speaker 1>But before the advent of synthetic dies, getting pigment out

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<v Speaker 1>of the land was laborious to make anything blue, you

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<v Speaker 1>needed Indigo, an organic compound found in the leaves of

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<v Speaker 1>certain plants, most notably indigo plants from the genus Indigo

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<v Speaker 1>phera from India or South America, although other plants such

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<v Speaker 1>as woade contain indigo compounds too, just in much lower concentrations.

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<v Speaker 1>The oldest existing piece of indigo dyed cotton fabric was

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<v Speaker 1>found in Peru in two thousand nine. The scrap is

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<v Speaker 1>six thousand years old. The first Indigophera used by Europeans

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<v Speaker 1>was grown around India, which is where the word indigo

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<v Speaker 1>comes from. Indigo was highly valued in Europe, but Europeans

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<v Speaker 1>wanted their own source of indigo that wasn't so expensive,

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<v Speaker 1>and that's where the America's came in. Until indigo die

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<v Speaker 1>was synthesized in Europe in two A species of Asian

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<v Speaker 1>Indigophera was a huge cash crop wherever it could be grown.

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<v Speaker 1>We've spoke with Donna Hardy, president and founder of the

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<v Speaker 1>International Center for Indigo Culture. She explained, in the sixteen hundreds,

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<v Speaker 1>Europeans colonized North America and immediately started trying to grow

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<v Speaker 1>crops of economic importance. Indigo is one of the first

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<v Speaker 1>plants the British attempted to grow when they got to

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<v Speaker 1>North America. They tried growing it in Jamestown. The Dutch

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<v Speaker 1>tried it in New Amsterdam president day New York City.

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<v Speaker 1>The French had some success in Louisiana, but nobody hadn't

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<v Speaker 1>much luck until Eliza Lucas came along in the seventeen thirties.

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<v Speaker 1>Sixteen year old Eliza Lucas, whose father was Lieutenant governor

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<v Speaker 1>of Antigua and who had an interest in botany, was

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<v Speaker 1>put in charge of three of her father's South Carolina plantations.

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<v Speaker 1>She and her father had no idea what to grow there,

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<v Speaker 1>but he sent her seeds from Antigua, and indigo seemed

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<v Speaker 1>to Eliza to have the most promise. She married a

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<v Speaker 1>man named Charles Pinkney, who wrote down the instructions for

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<v Speaker 1>how to grow in process indigo, and after a while

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<v Speaker 1>they made enough seed to hand out to the neighbors,

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<v Speaker 1>which started an indigo bonanza in the southern colonies. Hardy said,

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<v Speaker 1>before indigo, rice and deer hides were the main exports

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<v Speaker 1>from Charleston, Native American slaves were the first export. Of course,

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<v Speaker 1>Eliza and Charles Pinckney didn't figure out how to grow

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<v Speaker 1>and process indigo the people they enslaved did. The import

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<v Speaker 1>of enslaved Africans began to ramp up in the southern

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<v Speaker 1>colonies as a result of the indigo boom in the

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<v Speaker 1>mid eighteenth century. One of the biggest indigo promoters of

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<v Speaker 1>the time Moses Lindo, who went to Charleston from England

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<v Speaker 1>to act as Inspector General of Indigo. Coming out of

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<v Speaker 1>the part of Charleston, owned a slave ship called the

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<v Speaker 1>Lindo Packet, with which he imported enslaved people from Barbados

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<v Speaker 1>to Charlestown. And the indigo fever and the dependence on

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<v Speaker 1>slave labor that came with it, didn't end in South Carolina.

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<v Speaker 1>Hardy said slavery wasn't even legal in Georgia until indigo

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<v Speaker 1>became the main export in South Carolina. The British governors

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<v Speaker 1>in Georgia decided to legalize slavery to keep the indigo

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<v Speaker 1>industry going. Georgia's ban on slavery ended in seventeen fifty one,

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<v Speaker 1>and at the beginning of the Revolutionary War fifteen years later,

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<v Speaker 1>the enslaved population of that state had grown to over

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen thousand. Though the American colonies winning their independence from

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<v Speaker 1>Britain tanked the indigo market. It was quickly replaced by

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<v Speaker 1>rice and cotton. For its part, England turned its attention

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<v Speaker 1>to India for its indigo needs, where British colonists forced

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<v Speaker 1>sharecroppers to grow indigo for hardly any money. The legacy

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<v Speaker 1>of slavery followed indigo around until it was replaced by

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<v Speaker 1>synthetic indigo in the early twentieth century, when natural indigo

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<v Speaker 1>slipped into obscurity. These days, indigo dyeing is considered a

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<v Speaker 1>curious historic oddity, but according to Hardy, indigo has the

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<v Speaker 1>potential to be part of the solution for the broken

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<v Speaker 1>garment industry. Hardy said, the chemical formula for natural and

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<v Speaker 1>synthetic indigo are the same, but the synthetic dye has

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<v Speaker 1>stuff like formaldehyde in it, and synthetic dyes are all

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<v Speaker 1>petroleum based. The way we manufacture and die close isn't

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<v Speaker 1>good for people or the environment, and slavery is still

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<v Speaker 1>a thing in the garment industry. Today's episode was written

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<v Speaker 1>by Jesslin Shields and produced by Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>is production of I Heart Radios. How Stuff works. For

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<v Speaker 1>more on this and lots of other topics, visit our

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