indigo

Examples of indigo in the following topics:

• Agriculture

  • Plantation economy in the Old South was based on agricultural mass production of crops such as cotton, rice, indigo, and tobacco.
  • Crops cultivated on antebellum plantations included cotton, tobacco, indigo, and rice.
  • In the 1740s, Eliza Lucas Pinckney began indigo culture and processing in coastal South Carolina.
  • Indigo was in heavy demand in Europe for making dyes for clothing .
  • Carolina indigo succeeded in displacing French and Spanish indigo in the British and in some continental markets, reflecting the demand for cheap dyestuffs from manufacturers of low-cost textiles.

• The Plantation Economy and the Planter Class

  • Prominent plantation crops included cotton, rubber, sugar cane, tobacco, figs, rice, kapok, sisal, and indigo.
  • Crops cultivated on antebellum plantations included cotton, tobacco, indigo, and rice.
  • The indigo crop was grown for making blue indigo dye in the pre-industrial age.
  • Mahatma Gandhi's investigation of indigo workers' claims of exploitation led to the passage of the Champaran Agrarian Bill in 1917 by the British colonial government.

• Slavery in the South

  • Early on, enslaved people in the South worked primarily in agriculture, on farms and plantations growing indigo, rice, and tobacco; cotton did not become a major crop until after the American Revolution.
  • The Chesapeake region and North Carolina thrived on tobacco production, while South Carolina and Georgia thrived on rice and indigo.
  • While the southern part of Carolina produced thriving economies on rice and indigo (a plant that yields a dark blue dye used by English royalty) throughout the 18th century, the northern part of Carolina—later established as the separate colony of North Carolina—turned more toward tobacco production, like its neighbor Virginia.

• The Consumer Revolution

  • Some necessities and virtually all luxuries were imported to the few small cities and the larger plantations of South Carolina and Virginia; in return, raw materials such as for tobacco, rice, and indigo were exported.
  • By the 18th century, regional patterns of development had become clear; the New England colonies relied on shipbuilding and sailing to generate wealth while plantations (many using slave labor) in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas grew tobacco , rice, and indigo.

• Settling the Southern Colonies

  • They then developed into prosperous colonies that made large profits based on cash crops such as tobacco, indigo dye, and rice.

• Conclusion: Patterns of British Settlement in the Colonies

  • Each of these colonies added immensely to the Empire, supplying goods not produced in England, such as rice and indigo.

• Early American Slavery

  • Slavery manifested differently in different parts of the British colonies of North America, and was an integral part of the economic culture of the Chesapeake (in tobacco) and the lower South (in rice, indigo, tobacco, and eventually cotton).
  • Farms tended to be larger in the lower South than in the Chesapeake, and farmers worked a variety of crops (such as rice, indigo, and tobacco) staggered over the year.

• An Empire of Commerce

  • In the Carolinas, sugar, rice and indigo were also farmed.

• Changes in American Indian Life

  • The British settler-invaders, especially those in the southern colonies, purchased or captured American Indians to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo.

• Chesapeake Slavery

  • Each of these colonies developed a similar agricultural system that revolved around tobacco, which was later diversified with the introduction of cotton and indigo.