Colours, Commodities and the Birth of Globalization: A History of the Natural Dyes of the Americas, 1500-2000

This volume explores the global history of natural dyes from the Americas and asks how their production and trade have shaped globalisation since early modern times. From their extraction and processing to their overseas trade, it shows how this commodity contributed to the rise of the textile industry and consumption in Europe, the United States and Latin America. In doing so, it sheds new light on the emergence of a global economy. Spanning several centuries, Colours, Commodities and the Birth of Globalization takes the reader from 1500 through the industrial revolutions of Europe and the United States and culminates in the synthetic age of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Ranging from the indigo trade in the Atlantic to the secrets of the Indian production of cochineal, the chapters in this collection transcend nationally bounded historical narratives and explore transoceanic dynamics, imperial ambitions and the cross-cultural exchange of knowledge and techniques to better understand the birth of globalization.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors 1. Introduction: The Colours of Globalization, (Carlos Marichal and David Pretel, El Colegio de México, Mexico and University of Madrid, Spain) 2. The Natural Dyes of the Americas: Geography, Labour and Trade, (Carlos Marichal, El Colegio de México, Mexico) 3. The Making of Colonial Blue: Mesoamerican Indigo in the Iberian Atlantic, 1560–1620, (Adrianna Catena and Huemac Escalona, University of Warwick, UK and National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico) 4, A Place Under the Sun: Brazilwood in the Brazilian Economy (1500–1875), (José Jobson de Andrade Arruda, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) 5. Mexican Cochineal and the Material History of Art, (Georges Roque, CNRS, France) 6. Logwood, Masterless Men and British Interests in Yucatan and Central America, (Karl Offen, Syracuse University, USA) 7. From Abundance to Scarcity: Dyewood Production and Trade in the Colombian Caribbean, 1700–1900 (Jorge Enrique Elías-Caro, University of Magdalena, Colombia) 8. Indigo in Eighteenth-Century Venezuela: An Unfinished History, (Frédérique Langue, CNRS, France) 9. Above and Beyond Eliza Lucas Pinckney: Slave Expertise and South Carolina Indigo, (Andrea Feeser, Clemson University, USA) 10. Local Production, Atlantic trade: The Logwood Economy in Laguna de Términos During the Nineteenth Century, (Pascale Villegas and Rosa Torras Canangla, Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, Mexico and Centro de Estudios Mexicanos, Mexico) 11. Costa Rican Neotropical Dyewoods in Global Context, 1885–1940, (Anthony Goebel-Mc Dermott and Ronny J. Viales-Hurtado, Central America's Historical Research Center, Costa Rica, and University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica) 12. Defying Substitution: A Caribbean Dyewood in the Synthetic Age, (David Pretel, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) 13. Epilogue, (Dominique Cardon, CNRS, France) Selected Bibliography Index