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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
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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

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References

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