Today we take the color of our clothing for granted. We can get our clothing in any color
imaginable and the price remains the same, but in the past that was very different. Colors
with names like imperial purple or royal blue say it all: this color was for royalty. But
why was that the case? Purples and blues that would not quickly fade were very hard to make
and only a few processes existed. One of the methods involved crushing thousands of sea-snails
while blue was created from indigo or crushed gems which had to be imported from far away
lands. For these reasons only royalty (or at least VERY wealthy people) could use these
colors.
Eventually people discovered a tree called logwood, that could produce blues and purples,
as well as a stable black dye when mixed with iron. Logwood grows throughout the Caribbean
as well as Mexico and Central America, in clumps by the sea. British, French, and Dutch
sailors called Buccaneers set up logging camps and were shipping logwood back to Europe but
Spain had other plans. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries Spain had claimed ALL of
Central and South America. They didn’t like outsiders in “their lands”, lands they
had stolen from the native people, and so they began to send privateers to harass the
logwood cutters.
Unfortunately, for the Spanish, policing the shores of Central and South America wasn’t
an easy thing to do and the buccaneers were able to hide in the jungles when they saw
a Spanish raiding party coming. The buccaneers were also on better terms with the natives
as the native people despised the Spanish who were enslaving them, forcing them from
their lands, and converting their religion. The buccaneers had no interest in any of this
and would also trade with the natives supplying them with weapons, mirrors, cooking pots,
and knives.
Life for the buccaneers must have felt like paradise to them, they worked, ate, and drank
when they wanted and were all equal. Escaped slaves, sailors who deserted, social outcasts,
and just plain adventurous types all lived the same. To an outsider these men were viewed
in a negative light, as men who didn’t know their place in the world. Captain Nathaniel
Uring, who had wrecked on a reef in Belize wrote of the logwood cutters saying:
"The Wood-Cutters are generally a rude drunken Crew, some of which have been Pirates, and
most of them Sailors; their chief Delight is in drinking; and when they broach a Quarter
Cask or a Hogshead of Wine, they seldom stir from it while there is a drop left ... I had
but little Comfort living among these Crew of ungovernable Wretches, where there was
little else to be heard but Blasphemy, Cursing and Swearing.”
Eventually, when enough logwood had been cut, the crews would load it on to boats and take
it to sell in Jamaica. The would re-provision and then return to cut more. In time the Spanish
increased the amount of raids and forced many of the logwood cutters out of work. These
men joined up with pirate crews to get some revenge as well as for survival. In 1715 many
of the ejected logwood cutters travelled to Nassau and joined the growing number of pirates
based there. In the 1720’s pirates were now attacking and capturing logwood boats,
and there are accounts that Sam Bellamy and Blackbeard both went on to convert the log
cutter’s sloops into pirate ships.
As I mentioned earlier one of the dyes produced from logwood was a stable black, which until
now had not been cheap enough to produce and usually faded rapidly. The rich wanted black
formal evening wear and once it was discovered that logwood could be used to make this dye
the demand increased. A wealthy man named Henry Barham began to plant logwood trees
on Jamaica and brought African slaves to do the work. African families were based in town
near the masters and the women and children would work as servants in the houses while
the men worked in camps cutting the logwood. The fact that their wives and children were
kept back in town prevented these men from running away and, sadly, this practice continued
until 1853.If you enjoyed today video please like it, subscribe, and hit that bell icon
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