Indigo

“ And while these joyful Planters are thus rejoicing, the indigo is growing silently all round. While they play, Nature works for them. So does the patient black man; he smokes his huqqa and keeps an eye on the rising crop.
You will have learnt from Mr. Caird that indigo grows in cakes (the ale is imported) ; to his description of the process of manufacture I can only add that the juice is generally expressed in the vernacular. ”

“ Miles of rich lands, once clothed with luxuriant crops of rice, indigo, and waving grain, are now barren reaches of burning sand. The bleached skeletons of mango, jackfruit, and other trees, stretch out their leafless and lifeless branches, to remind the spectator of the time when their foliage rustled in the breeze, when their lusty limbs bore rich clusters of luscious fruit, and when the din of the bazaar resounded beneath their welcome shade. ”

“ The rearing of indigo was not this young girl’s only industry. I will quote from various [Pg 81] letters written by her in 1741 and 1742 before her marriage, to show her many duties, her intelligence, her versatility:—
Wrote my father on the pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton, Lucern, and Casada to perfection and had greater hopes from the Indigo, if I could have the seed earlier, than any of ye rest of ye things I had tried. ”

“ The Indigo Plantation. My father was an indigo planter; his name was Randolph. I bear his name in full—George Randolph.
There is Indian blood in my veins. My father was of the Randolphs of Roanoke—hence descended from the Princess Pocahontas. He was proud of his Indian ancestry—almost vain of it.
It may sound paradoxical, especially to European ears; but it is true, that white men in America, who have Indian blood in them, are proud of the taint. Even to be a “half-breed” is no badge of shame—particularly where the sang mêlé has been gifted with fortune. ”

“ INDIGO is a blue dye prepared from a plant (Indigofera tinctoria) with a shrubby stem, oblong, smooth, and winged leaves, bunches of flowers shorter than the leaves, and cylindrical pods slightly curved, which grows in America and the West Indies. The culture of indigo is an object of considerable importance in the West Indian islands, and in some parts of America. ”

“ Bengal is the chief seat of the indigo trade, and large quantities are imported into our own country and Great Britain. Artificial indigo is now made on a large scale, in Germany, from coal-tar products. ”

“ That the cultivation of indigo received a considerable impulse from the causes stated, is equally true,—but owing to the disturbed state of the country, the harvests have not exceeded hitherto in any considerable degree, those of former years. ”

“ The cultivation of indigo is very difficult. So much ploughing, and weeding, and carriage, there is no end to the expense; and if any of it is stained with carrying, they will not take it. If there be no gain, why do you cultivate it? ”

“ Batcham, “I travelled with a couple of men who said they were indigo planters, and so they may have been for all I know. Anyhow they spotted me to be a globe-trotter—said they knew it by the kind of hat I wore—and then they proceeded to fill me up about the country. One fellow said he didn’t own a yard of indigo land himself; always got the peasants to grow it for him; and the other went into some complicated explanation of how blue indigo was got by squeezing green leaves. ”

“ Isolated in Africa, the indigo peoples, like the red man, received little or none of the race elevation which would have been derived from the infusion of the Adamic stock. Alone in Africa, the indigo race made little advancement until the days of Orvonon, when they experienced a great spiritual awakening. ”

“ Although there are a great many fields in which the indigo grows wild, and settlements in which it was once extensively cultivated still exist, yet at this period but very little is produced. Its cultivation requires the greatest care, for it has to go through a very long process, from the picking of the leaves on which the blue is found until it is fit to be removed into chests. ”

“ The province, Western Bihár, of which Patná was the capital, was one of the richest provinces in India. It contained a considerable number of native landowners, men of large estates and ancient lineage. English merchants, too, had invested large sums in the province in the cultivation of indigo, one of its staple exports. ”

“ Many indigo planters doubled their capital every three or four years, and at last not only England was supplied with indigo from South Carolina, but the Americans undersold the French in many European markets. It exceeded all other southern industries in importance, and became a general medium of exchange. When General Marion’s young nephew was sent to school at Philadelphia, he started off with a wagon-load of indigo to pay his expenses. ”

“ The central provinces of Java yield large quantities of indigo, which are exported to Holland, and thence widely distributed. The indigo prepared by the natives is of an indifferent quality, in a semi-fluid state, and contains much quicklime; but that prepared by Europeans is of a very superior quality. An inferior variety, having smaller seeds, and being of quicker growth, is usually planted as a second crop on land where one rice crop has been raised. In these situations, the plant rises to a height of about 31⁄2 ft. ”

“ As the Europeans did not become acquainted with the nature of indigo till modern times, it needs excite no astonishment264 that the old commentators should have erred in explaining the passages to which I here allude; and their opinion can therefore be of little weight in opposition to mine. Those who have approached nearest to the truth, Sarazen, Mathioli, Salmasius, &c., speak as if indigo were made from our woad, which however does not grow in India. Dioscorides speaks also of woad in a particular section. Marcellus Vergilius says, that Dioscorides meant indigo is certain ”

“ The best indigo ought to be light, hard, and sparkling. In Surinam but little of it is cultivated, for what reason I know not, since one pound is sold for about four florins, which is about seven shillings in sterling money. ”

“ The Lieutenant Governor has read the translation since the copies, of which the transmission is complained of, were despatched. It will be found that Indigo planters, on whose behalf complaint is made, are by no means the only class—Native or European—criticised in this Bengalee play. Faults are as unsparingly imputed to European Magistrates, Native officials, and Native factory Omlah as to Indigo Planters. ”

“ Indigo continued to be a chief staple of the country for more than thirty years, history tells us, and after the Revolution it was again cultivated, but the loss of the British bounty, the rivalry of the East Indies with their cheaper labour and the easier cultivation of cotton, all contributed to its abandonment about the end of the century. ”

“ They carry on an extensive traffic with the wild tribes of the neighbouring mountains. Indigo is grown in considerable quantity, as are rice and tobacco. The weaving of blankets, handkerchiefs, and cotton and silk cloths constitutes quite an important industry. ”

“ Increasing culture.Whatever may have been the causes of this evident backwardness, from the period of the establishment of the Philippine Company in these Islands, and in consequence of the exertions of some of the directors to promote the cultivation of indigo, at that time very little known, the natives have slowly, though gradually, been reconciled to it ”

“ P. 29. ...the spectre of indigo. ...the great burden of Indigo. P. 29. Why have they brought this brother-in-law here? Why have you brought this my brother here? P. 29. He does not understand a thing.⁠ Untranslated. P. 29. ... the following verse. ...the following sentence. P. 29. So the Indigo Saheb...blue devil. So the Indigo of the Indigo factory is an instrument of punishment. P. 29. ...Forming such verses. Forming such sentences. P. 30. ...hear another verse ...hear another sentence. P. 30. What a composition! But what is really meant by "Destroyed the caste?" ”

“ The warmth yet shade-loving Indian of the Amazon; the Indian of the hot, dry and treeless coasts of Peru and Guayaquil, who exposes his bare head to the sun with as much zest as an African negro; the Indian of the Andes, for whom no cold seems too great, who goes constantly barelegged and often bare-headed, through whose rude straw hut the piercing wind of the paramos sweeps and chills the white man to the very bones;—all these, in the colour and texture of the skin, the hair and other important features, are plainly of one and the same race. ”

“ In the final result, South America would attain the advanced position in development, even in an inferior country, which seems to have been the fact. The Peruvian legend of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, children of the sun, brother and sister, husband and wife, shows, if it can be said to show anything, that a band of Village Indians migrating from a distance, though not necessarily from North America direct, had gathered together and taught the rude tribes of the Andes the higher arts of life, including the cultivation of maize and plants. ”

“ On the Amazon there are a few small settlements to collect the India rubber and cacao of that valley.
Save these sparse settlements, the interior of South America is inhabited by wild tribes of Indians, uncivilized save for the presence of a few Catholic priests, who have given the Indians the cross and the image of the Virgin Mary, which they worship, mingling the Catholic religion with their old idolatries and barbarous rites. The natives are believed to be more idle and less civilized than when the Spaniards discovered America. ”

“ INDIAN CULTURE Because of their isolation the Indians had to work out by themselves many arts, inventions, and discoveries. They spoke over a thousand languages and dialects; and not one has yet been traced outside of America. Their implements consisted of polished stone, occasionally of unsmelted copper, and in Mexico and Peru, of bronze. They cultivated Indian corn, or maize, but lacked the other great cereals. They domesticated the dog and the llama of the Andes. They lived in clans and tribes, ruled by headmen or chiefs. ”

“ The Indians of Central America, bear as little resemblance to those of our country generally, as the Spaniards among whom they dwell do, to us. They do not, in any place, live by themselves, as independent tribes. They have no peculiar habits of life, or of warfare—no hunting—no sports peculiar to themselves—and none of the customs of their ancestors preserved, to distinguish them from the mass of people about them. It is only their complexion, their poverty, and generally degraded condition, that marks the difference between them and their neighbors. ”

“ The Indians here alluded to all profess Christianity, and must, as Indios Christianos, in strict correctness, be distinguished from the wild Indians, Indios Bravos, who exclusively inhabit the [Pg 282] eastern Montañas of Peru, towards the frontiers of Brazil. These Indios Bravos comprehend numerous tribes, each of which has its own customs, religion, and also, in general, its own language. ”

“ From all these settlements the wild Indian keeps away. He is never found near them—he is never seen by travellers, not even by the settlers. You may descend the mighty Amazon from its source to its mouth, and not once set your eyes upon the true son of the forest—the “Indio bravo.” Coming in contact only with the neophyte of the Spanish missionary, and the skulking tapuio of the Portuguese trader, you might bring away a very erroneous impression of the character of an Amazonian Indian. ”

“ Taken as a whole the Indians of Uruguay are—and have ever been—a brave but peace-loving people, engaged principally in sheep and cattle-rearing. No doubt the mildness of their character and pursuits is largely due to considerations which are purely geographical; for the sea and the Uruguay River together make the country almost an island, to which the Argentine and Brazilian Indians would never venture to penetrate. Further, there are—apart from the native cattle—no large or fierce wild animals. ”

“ The Indians—a race called Pueblos—about here are quiet, civilised after a fashion and a bad one. There is a large settlement some miles farther on than Santa Fé where the train halted, and we were surrounded by red men eager for tobacco, women, and children, with turquoises to sell—keen-eyed, white-teethed, with masses of straight, coarse black hair, cut straight off the forehead, worn by the men in clubs behind, and by the women in unkempt locks. ”

“ The natives of New Spain are darker than the Indians of Quito and New Granada, who inhabit a precisely analogous climate. The nations dispersed to the North of the Rio Gola are darker than those that border on the kingdom of Guatemala. The Indians who, in the torrid zone, inhabit the most elevated table land of the Cordilleras of the Andes, have a complexion as much copper coloured as those who cultivate the Banana under a burning sun in the narrowest and deepest valleys of the equinoctial regions. ”

“ These Indians, who were masters of this region, originally came, as I have before said, from the other side of the great river of Darien. The lords or caciques are obeyed and feared by the Indians, and their women are the prettiest and most loveable of any that I have seen in the Indies. They are clean in their eating, and have none of the dirty habits of other nations. These Indians have small villages, and their houses are like long sheds. They sleep in hammocks and use no other sort of bed. Their land is fertile and abundantly supplied with provisions, such as well tasted roots. ”