Indigo and the Transformation of the Caribbean
Jutta Wimmler
BCDSS Research Group Leader
In the 17th and 18th centuries, indigo was one of the main cash crops cultivated on Caribbean plantations, especially on Saint-Domingue (Haiti). The establishment of plantations transformed the Caribbean environment and changed the composition of the population, as enslaved persons from Africa were needed as laborers.
When European settlers and entrepreneurs began to create plantations on the Caribbean islands, they practically terraformed the local environment. They cleared forests at an extreme speed, introduced new plants and animals, and pushed the previous inhabitants from most of the islands in a number of intense wars. Well before the age of cotton, cocoa, and coffee, indigo was among the most important crops on many of the islands. French-occupied Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti) became Europe’s primary source of indigo in the eighteenth century. The French example illustrates the phenomenal rise of indigo plantations in the Caribbean: there were 48 indigo mills on all of the French Caribbean islands in 1683; 171 mills on Saint Christopher in 1687; 1,200 in Saint-Domingue by 1713, and twice that by 1730. During that time, the slave trade from Africa also exploded, as did the number of enslaved men and women on the French islands. Many of them labored day by day on the plantations and in the mills. From Saint-Domingue, indigo was shipped to all of Europe and used to dye textiles for European and African markets. It was especially important in so-called resist printing.
Fig. 1: Indigo production: “Depiction of a simple indigo mil, the digestion vat of which is filled and covered with wood, but the beating vat with its assembled parts is prepared for beating with the beating bar.” Beauvais Raseau (1772), The Art of the Indigo Maker. IV. Copper, p. 397.
Further Reading
Hollsten, Laura, 2008. “Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean.” Global Environment 1: 80-113.
Pritchard, James S., 2004. In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–1730.Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Wimmler, Jutta, TBP 2025. “Environment and Materials. Extraction and Preparation of Materials.” In Marieke Hendriksen (ed.): A Cultural History of Technology in the Age of Expansion and Enlightenment. London: Bloomsbury Academic.