Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:06:06.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Garments of Servitude, Fabrics of Freedom

Dress of Enslaved and Free Diaspora African Communities in the Mid-Atlantic, c. 1700–1840

from Part II - Early Modern Global Entanglements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2023

By
Steeve O. Buckridge
Edited by
Christopher Breward ,
Beverly Lemire  and
Giorgio Riello
Christopher Breward
Affiliation:
National Museums of Scotland
Beverly Lemire
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Giorgio Riello
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence
Get access

Summary

The Atlantic Basin was the centre of vibrant commerce that included vast quantities of essential commodities such as textiles and clothing that influenced dress and consumer goods consumption throughout the region. The dress customs of the Atlantic world were characterized by enormous variety and complexities born out of commingling and migration of diverse groups of people. This blending was also part of a globalizing world in which capitalism and transformation in consumer culture gave rise to new identities and styles. Atlantic dress depicted differentiation and overlapping cultural influences that were by-products of local and global trade systems connecting people across several colonial empires. In the Atlantic Basin, for instance, many colonies relied on large imports of Indian cottons that were also traded in West and Central Africa in exchange for slaves needed to provide labour in plantation zones of the Americas. Consequently, the Atlantic world was influenced by wider intercontinental patterns and a burgeoning global economy.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Global History of Fashion
From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
 , pp. 399 - 442
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Select Bibliography

Adams, Charles Dennis, Flowering Plants of Jamaica (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1972).Google Scholar
Barclay, Alexander, A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies (London: Smith and Elder, 1826).Google Scholar
Binder, Pearl, Dressing Up and Dressing Down (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986).Google Scholar
Foster, Bradley, Helen, New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Berg, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckridge, Steeve O., The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmichael, A. C., Domestic Manners; and Social Conditions of the White, Colored and Negro Population of the West Indies, 2 vols. (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1833).Google Scholar
Din, Gilbert C., Spaniards, Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763–1803 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Loren, DiPaolo, Diana, The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010).Google Scholar
DuPlessis, Robert, The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart (ed.), Representations: Cultural Representations Signifying Practices (London: Open University, 1997).Google Scholar
Holland Braund, Kathryn E., Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1680–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Lemire, Beverly, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).Google Scholar
Long, Edward, The History of Jamaica or General Survey of the Ancient and Modern State of the Island: With Reflections on Its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws and Government, 3 vols. (London: T. Lowndes, 1774).Google Scholar
McDonald, Roderick A., The Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods and Chattels on the Slave Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Sloane, Sir Hans, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, St. Christopher and Jamaica, with the Natural History of the Herbs and Trees, Four-Footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds, Insects, Reptiles, Etc. of the Last of Those Islands, 2 vols. (London: B. M., 1707–25).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×