Amy Chang

ANTH E-1145
Indigofera—the blue that colored history

The blue dye found in color of your jeans carries a little-known history of conflict. The color of
denim actually comes from indigo, a colorant that has been employed as one of the earliest dyes
in textile manufacturing. While the color may seem rather commonplace in our lives today,
indigo-dyed fabrics were once considered rare and prized, and the color was once one of the
most valued pigments in almost every culture.

Indigo comes with a long history: having originated from the Orient and gradually migrated to
Europe, it survived through the color-filled world of the nobility through to the dark hues of the
Middle Ages. It was then employed by both the ruling and working classes. In the 1870s, the
washed-out denim look was achieved by using indigo to dye cloth that was too dense to fully
absorb the dye. The secret to the familiarity and comfort of denim may be hidden in the
formation of the color itself—since the color would gradually fade upon subsequent laundering,
the tone on each pair would have its own unique history.

“It was a living color born originally from a fermenting vat, like wine or cheese, that
made living pants, which, like a domestic animal, grafted themselves onto and became
intimate with their human owners1.”

Even a century before the invention of denim as a social equalizer, blue had already become the
color for the Euro-American working class, known as a “color of the uniformed society2.”
Napoleon imported 150 tons of indigo to dye 600,000 uniforms a year for his Grand Army, and
to this day, blue is associated with work and authority—the uniform of the police, of Cub Scouts,
of the Dress Blues for the U.S. Army and Marines.

But if we trace back in time to early civilization, the story was told very differently. Blue is
generally rare to be found in nature, and indigo, a shade that seemingly also reflected hints of
black and purple, soon became the “king of dye”—a color associated with status and spirituality.

“For art and decorative architecture, indigo was a rare, refulgent, and costly material,
used to express, as the contemporary Algerian artist Rachid Koraichi says, the
‘supraterrestrial…the path to the infinite.’ This idea was also echoed in Christian,
Islamic, and Jewish cultures, where it was used to symbolize the ancient caliphate, the
royal court, the church and the mosque, the canopy of heaven, a holy person’s robes.3”

The use of indigo in luxury textiles expanded beyond the range of blues. Many of the darker
dyes—green, purple, dark red, browns, blacks—popular in the late 16th and 17th centuries
required an initial base of indigo. (This was achieved by one or more immersions first in an
indigo dye vat.) In the 17th century, indigo was used “to dye silk consumed at Court” in Madrid.
By the 18th century, “le bleu triomphe” symbolized the light-blue fashion of the French Court4.

1
Michael Taussig, “Redeeming Indigo,” Theory, Culture & Society, 25 (2008): 1-15.
2
Ibid.
3
Catherine E. McKinley, Indigo: In search of the color that seduced the world (Bloomsbury: New York, 2011).
4
Michel Pastoureau, “Vers un Histoire de la Couleur Bleue,” in Sublime Indigo, eds. Françoise Viatte and Madeleine
Pinault Sørensen (Marseille: Museés de Marseille, 1987).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145

In Africa, the mysticism and beauty of indigo are steeped into local culture and expand beyond
aristocratic decoration. The Tuareg, the nomadic “blue men” of the Sahara, were known for the
indigo robes, indigo turbans, and indigo veils whose pigment stained into their skin—the
adornment of which was both considered a rite to manhood and a necessity to ward off evil
spirits. In Nigeria, it was believed to be a symbol of wealth and fertility, and the Yoruba women
handcrafted their adire alesso—indigo cloths with specific tie-dye and resist-dye techniques
passed on from mothers to daughters—and dedicate their craft to Iya Mapo, the patron god of
indigo work5.

“West African women rubbed it into their hair and skin, painted their bodies with it, and
used it for tattooing and to enhance body cicatrization. It was burned as incense to ward
off bad spirits. It was used as an antiseptic, a contraceptive, and an abortifacient; a cure
for syphilis; and its root was regarded as a powerful sexual stimulant. Bodies were
tattooed with it for healing purposes, particularly at the joints as relief from arthritis.”

On the other side of the globe, Japanese samurai in the 1600s wore aizome (indigo-dyed) fabrics
under their armor due to its rumored antibacterial, flame-resistant, and odor-repellant properties6.
The mystical possibilities for indigo seemed limitless, and its purported healing properties would
encompass the ability to repel mosquitos carrying malaria and yellow fever by the time of the
American Revolution. But before we get ahead of ourselves—let us introduce the plant
responsible for the discovery of the pigment, Indigofera, and how it established status as a
coveted colorant in early modern history.

History of the Indigofera plant

Before synthetic dyes were discovered in 1856, natural colorants were developed from animal or
plant sources. The use of the natural dye typically involved one of two species: Indigofera
tinctoria (native to India and Asia) and Indigofera suffructiosa (native to South and Central
America)7. Indigo was one of the earliest natural dyes for used for textiles—along with red dye
from harvested from the roots of madder plants, these plant-based dyes were more commonly
used in textiles due to greater availability than pigments made from insects or mollusks8.
Evidence for the oldest known indigo-colored fabric dates back to at least 6,000 years ago in
Huaca Prieta, Peru9.

Indigo comes from leaves of the Indigofera, a shrub-like genus of plants growing four to six feet
tall widely distributed around the world. The plant belongs to a family of leguminous plants that
were native to India, China, Indonesia, and some northern parts of South America. Swedish

5
Mwalimu J. Shujaa and Kenya J. Shujaa, The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America
(SAGE Publications, 2015).
6
Japan Monthly Web Magazine, “Aizome, the Mystical Japan Blue,” Japan Monthly Web Magazine (2015).
7
Gosta Sandberg, Indigo textiles: technique and history (A & C Black Ltd, 1989).
8
James P. Bernard, “A Brief History of Natural Dyes,” First Source Worldwide.
9
J.C. Splitstoser, T.D. Dillehay, J. Wouters and A. Claro, “Early pre-Hispanic use of indigo blue in Peru,” Science
Advances 2 (2016).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
botanist Carl Linneaus classified the plant to the way we know it today—Indigofera, after the
land of its origin and the Latin root -fero, to produce.

Compared to other natural dyes of the time, indigo was a more challenging one to coax but was
able to produce more a fade-resistant dye. The colorant is not soluable in water, therefore the
process of extracting dye involved soaking and fermenting leaves of the Indigofera in order to
convert organic compounds in the leaves into the blue dye, indigotin. The textile or garment
needed to be further aerated during the dye process to set the color and convert indigo back into
its original insoluble form to set into fabric10.

As French statesman Jean-Baptiest Colbert stated: “It is not enough for a dye to be lovely, it
must also be good and last as long as the material it adorns.” Indigo dye harbored this practical
quality—what dyemakers refer to as fastness—and in many civilizations, blue was the only dye
that met this condition while still being easily absorbed11. Combined with its economically costly
production, indigo soon carried an elevated status became reserved for those in high estate,
thereby playing a significant role in the course of early modern civilization. While indigo has
always been of significance to local economies, it did not reach universal attention until it was
cultivated systematically as trade opened up in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Early days of competition: Woad v Indigo

During the Middle Ages, the wealthy nobility sent explorers and traders to the East for rare
spices, fabrics, and colors for textiles. By the 13th century, trade routes to India and the Middle
East brought back all different dyes of velvet, silk, muslin, cotton, satin, and mohair12. Indigo-
dyed textiles were carried along these caravan routes by Arab traders, and then sold to Italian
merchants who introduced them to the market in Europe. The route was long, the price inflated
with markup and middlemen, and thus indigo textiles was were established as a luxury good
from the Orient.

This was not to say that there were no other blue textile dyes in Europe in those early days—blue
was produced by the leaves of another: the woad plant, Isatis tinctoria. Widespread and found
from Central Europe to the Mediterranean and Central Asia, Isatis could also be fermented into a
similar indigo-colored dye. It was, however, found to lack the same richness and yield as that of
Indigofera—dye produced from the latter was considered 30 times more potent13.

Prior to the Sixteenth Century, the woad plant was used as the primary blue colorant to northern
Italy, southern France, and parts of England and Germany14. With trade and influx of more vivid
dyes such as that produced by Indigofera, the woad farmers of Europe began to seek
protectionism for their industries, particularly in regions where woad was a critical economic
crop.

10
Stuart Grais, “Indigo,” DePaul University.
11
Sandberg, Indigo textiles.
12
Taussig, “Redeeming Indigo.”
13
Country Home Magazine, “True Blue,” Chicago Tribune (1988).
14
Anne Mattson, “Indigo in the Early Modern World,” University of Minnesota Bell Library.
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
In response, woad farmers in Europe joined forces to prevent import indigo from taking over
their home industry—indigo was labeled as the Devil’s Dye, and a rush of protectionist policies
followed suit. By 1598, Indigofera was outlawed in France, and by 1609, Henry IV issued a
decree that anyone found using the dye would be punishable by death15. By 1577, Germany also
declared the prohibition of this “recently discovered, injurious and fraudulent, devouring and
corrosive color”. Queen Elizabeth banned indigo imports in 1532, and inspectors burned any
shipments contraband of indigo they found coming in16—its use briefly was authorized again in
1581, but soon the plant was declared “poisonous” after hazardous attempts of dyeing methods
employing arsenic.

None of these measures, however, took much effect. Indigo was recognized as a superior product
and overcame this resistance from local European farmers. As the Dutch, French, and British
East India Companies expanded their operations and as the taste for the blue dye grew in Europe,
the supply for indigo as a commodity continued from the East. Colonial indigo plantations
started to take root around the world.

Colonialism and the Indigo Revolt

The first to introduce colonial plantations of indigo were the Spanish, which began the
cultivation of the plant in Central America—modern day Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
The biggest operations, however, were seen in India, where the demand from Europe created
some of the earliest dedicated centers for production and processing of Indigofera tinctoria—
eventually leading to one of a curiously named uprisings: The Indigo Revolt of 1859.

Expansion of the British Empire into India led to the introduction of indigo planting in the 1700s.
The East India Company had considered indigo dye as one of the principal trade items, and in its
record year of 1895-1896, the volume of trade reached 9,366 tons valued at £3,566,70017. The
trade soon became a staple of the Bengal economy—in 1973, indigo exports from Bengal were
only a tenth of the dye that England had imported from other countries; by 1815, the production
from Bengal almost supplied the entire world’s consumption.

A class of merchants—called indigo planters—came into play, who proved to be key in

furthering the flourishing of the indigo industry. These were independent agents working with
the East India Company, from which the Company would purchase the exported goods. As the
venture showed to be more and more profitable due to the high demand for exports, indigo
planters began to convince local peasants to transition from food crops by offering them a
generous loan (dadon) to start the cultivation of these prized indigo plants.

While the new venture seemed fashionable at first, the Indian famers—raiyats—soon realized
that they were not making a profit—the indigo planters only paid them a meagre fraction (2.5
percent) of the price of the dye, and combined with the high interest incurred on the loans,
farmers were soon in debt on the verge of losing their mortgages with threats of destruction of
property. The conditions of the plantations threatened the health of the peasants as well:

15
Adrianna Catena, “Indigo in the Atlantic World,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History (2018).
16
Sandberg, Indigo textiles.
17
Asiaticus, “The Rise and Fall of the Indigo Industry in India” The Economic Journal 22 (1912): 237-247.
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145

“[I]ndigo workers are reported as wearing masks with only the eyes exposed on account
of the smell, while those close to the work drank milk every hour, ‘this being a
preservative against the subtlety of the indigo’. The workers would spit blue for some
time after work. An egg placed near a person working an indigo vat would, at the end of
one day, be found to be altogether blue inside18.”

“Indigo manufacture in Tirhoot, Lower Bengal” from the Illustrated London News, 1869. On the right, bales of
freshly cut indigo are loaded into steeping vats where the plant is left to ferment with water until a green-tinted fluid
is achieved. The fluid then transfers into beating vats on the left, where indigo workers stand in a waist-high pool
and employ a beating motion with sticks to oxygenate the liquid. This chemical oxidization process is required for
the fecula (starchy sediment of the dye) to form, which precipitates at the bottom of the beating vat, to be later
collected, boiled, pressed, and dried into dye cakes.

This culminated into a revolt in 1859, where peasants led a rebellion against the merchants.
Indigo depots were destroyed; indigo merchants were tried and executed. In response, the
British-backed government sanctioned the military and police to relentlessly suppress the
revolution. Countless peasants were slaughtered in the bloodshed that ensued, and Britain passed
Act XI of 1860, where breach of contract on the part of raiyats was made a criminal offense—
raiyats became bonded laborers that only had tenancy rights, who could be jailed if they did not
follow through with orders to grow the plant.

18
J.B. Tavernier, Travels in India (Macmillian: London, 1889).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
The Indigo Revolt was perhaps only an echo of the series of riots and protests in the plantations
just after the unsuccessful Indian Rebellion of 1857. The atrocities suffered by peasants at the
hands of the British and landowners were part of a much larger story of imperialism, which was
turned into a famous play, Nil Darpan—The Mirror of Indigo—translated into English by
Reverend James Long, who was sentenced to prison and charged with sedition19.

New world indigo and slavery

The appetite for indigo only continued as Europeans expanded into the New World. Cultivation
in the New World was mostly done in the West Indies, established by French and English
colonists.

It was recognized that Indigofera was a difficult plant to cultivate—production required “many
acres of land, several slaves, a processing works, and a high degree of technical knowledge20.”
Trials on the American mainland produced mostly low-quality dyestuff, as Guatemalan and West
Indies indigo commanded prices two or three times higher than that produced by American
colonies. Most American planters had abandoned indigo culture in face of the better imports
from these other planters21—that is, until indigo was reintroduced as a major cash crop in South
Carolina.

The success of indigo in the colonies is mostly attributed to Eliza Lucas Pickney. With her father
in the British Army dispatched overseas, Eliza was in charge of her siblings and managing the
family’s plantations. As an educated woman and amateur botanist, she was determined to find a
cash crop to pull her family out of debt—realizing that the global textile industry was creating
new demand for dyes, Eliza began to experiment and eventually cultivated high-quality strains of
the indigo plant to suit the storms and the periodic frost of temperate South Carolina.

From 1744 to 1774, indigo production in South Carolina started in Charlestown and soon took
over the middle and back country. In those thirty years, also termed the “Indigo Bonanza”,
production increased from just a few pounds to over a million each year and indigo became the
second market crop after the main agricultural staple, rice. Soon enough, the profits from
producing this blue dye (dubbed “blue gold”) surpassed sugar and cotton22, and an indigo planter
was said to be able to double their capital every three or four years.

A large part of indigo’s success in South Carolina was due to it being a complement to existing
agriculture—the sandy coastal regions and dark upload soils was inhospitable to rice but suitable
for indigo, and where soils were suitable for both, indigo could be planted during slack periods in
rice culture.

19
Ranajit Guha, “Neel darpan: The image of a peasant revolt in a liberal mirror,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 2
(1974): 1-46.
20
G. Terry Sharer, “The Indigo Bonanza in South Carolina, 1740-90,” Technology and Culture 12 (1971): 447-455.
21
David L. Coon, “Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the Reintroduction of Indigo Culture in South Carolina,” The Journal of
Southern History 42 (1976): 61-76.
22
National Public Radio, “Indigo: The Indelible Color that Ruled the World,” WBUR News.
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
Indigo processing, however, required slaves with a certain degree of experience and skill. In the
trans-Atlantic trade, Africans believed to have knowledge of cultivating and producing
Indigofera were brought to the United States. Indigo cultivation involved fieldwork less intense
than that for rice or sugar, but it was still an insalubrious place:

“The stench of the work vats, where the indigo plants were putrefied, was so offensive
and deleterious, that the ‘work’ was usually located at least one quarter of a mile away
from human dwellings. The odor from the rotting weeds drew flies and other insects by
the thousands, greatly increasing the chances of the spread of diseases. Animals and
poultry on an indigo plantation likewise suffered, and it was all but impossible to keep
livestock on, or near, the indigo manufacturing site23.”

Nevertheless, dye making continued as a lucrative venture for those who had the resources to
make use of indigo as a cash crop. As market success continued, increased labor demands
solidified the economic dependence on slavery. The plant played a pivotal role in the social and
economic history of the colonies—particularly in South Carolina, where planters were exporting
1.1 million pounds of indigo to Europe, equivalent to $30 million in exports today. Cultivation of
indigo had expanded the economy and aided the attainment of political power of the South.
Some argue that this further facilitated the later transition to the cotton-based economy, as the
experience with indigo also provided Southern planters with an agriculture base and as well as
sizeable capital stock24.

In the fledging years of the country where the dollar still had no strength, indigo cakes were used
as a form of traded currency. It is not difficult to imagine why—a single 8-ounce dried cake of
indigo required 2000 square feet of land, not including all the labor and skill involved in the
cultivation and manufacturing processes. During the war, the indigo shipments were valued over
rice, since cubes of indigo were more compact and had lower freight rates.

Synthetic indigo and modern production

In a sharp turn of events, the industry producing natural indigo was almost entirely killed off in
the 1850s when a nineteen-year-old research assistant, William Henry Perkins, discovered
synthetic dye through coal tar chemistry. Indigo was first synthesized in 1878 by Baeyer, and in
1890, the first artificial indigo was introduced to the market25. Synthetic chemical dyes now are
employed over our natural, Indigofera-based colorants. In fact, nearly all indigo produced today
comes from synthetic sources.

The synthetic alternative offered several advantages over the natural, plant-based solution: it
contained fewer impurities, its color was more constant, and the manufacturing process was less
affected by weather conditions. In the year of 1896, India had exported 18,700 tons of indigo and
Germany paid 20 million marks for imports on the product—by 1914, India’s exports on indigo

23
Kenneth H. Beeson, “Indigo Production in the Eighteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 44
(1964): 214-218.
24
Sharer, “The Indigo Bonanza.”
25
Oscar Nelson Allen and Ethel Kullmann Allen, “Indigofera” in The Leguminosae, a Source Book of Characteristics,
Uses, and Nodulation (Macmillan: 1981).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
dropped to 1000 tons, and Germany was exporting its own synthetic indigo at the value of over
50 million marks.26

As Levi Strauss unveiled the iconic first pair of Double X Blue Denim 501s in 1873, the fate of
the color was locked in for generations to come. Now, indigo dyeing is has become the most
widespread of all textile dyeing. The demand for the colorant is higher than ever—over four
million denim garments are produced each year, mostly in the all-too-familiar form of blue jeans.

Consider the Xintang township of Guangzhou, China. It is also known as the blue jean capital of
the world, and in 2017, it was estimated that the town was responsible for 50 percent of Chinese
demand and 30 percent of jeans exported27. Each pair of the 2.5 million pairs produced in
Xintang every day, however, comes at a high environmental price.

The deep, rich dye is notorious for being an incredibly environmentally polluting source.
Synthetic indigo is derived from petroleum, and fabric dyeing process involves heavy metals
such as cadmium, lead, and mercury. Since indigo has more trouble penetrating and binding to
fibers, a potent bleaching agent must be used to fix the color into the fabric28. Untreated waste
from factories have been found to contaminate the nearby Pearl River to the extent that its waters
ran black29. In 2010, heavy metals (cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead and copper) were found
in 17 out of 21 samples taken—and in one sample, cadmium exceeded China's national limits by
128 times30. (Cadmium exposure is responsible for lung disease, kidney disease and other forms
of cancer.)

It should be mentioned there have been concerted efforts to remedy the current denim crisis.
Eco-conscious consumers and environmentally minded chemists are looking for solutions to help
minimize ink pollution31, but these new methods prove to be expensive, and change is difficult.
The textile industry is a $3 trillion-per-year business that employs over 60 million workers
around the world, and manufacturing faces fierce price competition. Even if apparel brands
commit to more sustainably sourced garments, customers “will not buy anything that could raise
the cost of a finished garment by as little as a penny32.”

Cultural remnants: Kano of Nigeria

Despite modern civilization and the gradual transition to synthetic dyes, the rippling effects of
Indigofera can still be felt today. The color indigo has established itself as such a cornerstone in
our fashion economy that the shift away from the colorant is now lending itself to new sources of
conflict.

26
Sandberg, Indigo textiles.
27
Weihua Chen, “Xintang pays heavy price for putting world in blue jeans,” China Daily (2017).
28
Nature. “Chemists go green to make better blue jeans,” Nature 553 (2018).
29
Emily Chang, “China’s famed Pearl River under denim threat,” CNN News (2010).
30
The Guardian, “The price of success: China blighted by industrial pollution,” The Guardian (2011).
31
Anjishnu Das, “Blue jeans, green drive,” Economic Times (2018).
32
Melody M. Bomgardner, “These new textile dyeing methods could make fashion more sustainable,” Chemical
and Engineering News 96 (2018).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
Many communities have centuries-old traditions based off of hand-dying indigo fabrics. The
Kano region of Nigeria, for example, used to be the center of trans-Saharan trade in supplying
the dyed cloth. The region was known for its indigo cotton back in the day, alongside other
goods such as salt and gold in the Sahel belt. Kano’s traditional rulers adopted the color and
adorned robes in the brilliantly deep blue33.

With the onset of global trade and manufacturing in the modern day, these communities are
experiencing a fall in demand as foreign competition is able to supply significantly cheaper
alternatives. Machine fabrics now come in at much lower prices made from China, England, and
Holland.

The traditional Kano method involves a process that is both time and energy intensive. The
fabric is soaked up to six hours in dedicated dye pits, where twigs are mixed in water with ash to
give its glaze, potassium to fix its color. Garments are then lifted out every minute to be
oxygenated, which helps the coloring process. In the end, the cloth needs to be continuously
beaten with a mallet to remove creases.

These ancient production techniques are now outpaced by factories that are able to churn out
goods at a quarter of the cost compared to these more traditional methods34. Despite their
struggling economies, residents of Kano are fighting to keep their tradition alive. With over 120
pits remaining, only 30 are functioning—many families have filled in the pits as they look to
other livelihoods. However, most of the pits are family-owned, and many elders still hope to pass
on this culture to their children, waiting for the pits to be dug out one day and reclaimed by
future generations.

A plant that painted history

Perhaps it may be somewhat unfair to blame our Indigofera for all the human conflict it has
caused over the years. Indeed, even if Indigofera never existed, another colorant may have taken
its place and created its own unfortunate turn of events. It is not difficult to imagine how humans
might have easily devised another way to stratify and differentiate across populations, another
commodity to covet and pursue.

“All labor has something of this quality, this eerie intimacy with things and with motions
inseparable from the thing we call mind, only we take it for granted and rarely notice it
until hit with a broadside from the colonies and from other sites of manual labor where
the mix of horror and the fabulous makes us sit up and take note35.”

It can be said, however, that Indigofera served this inevitable role in the course of human history.
Its striking color and its labor-intensive construction made it the perfect instrument in early years
to serve as a marker of status and satisfy the need for hierarchy. In some ways, the undue
attention paid toward our little shrub was perhaps a symptom of our tendency to establish order,
a milestone in our path toward civilization; the rest simply fell into place.

33
Daniel Flynn, “Ancient indigo dye pits rarely survive in Nigeria,” Reuters (2007).
34
Christian Purefoy, “Nigeria's 500-year-old dye tradition under threat,” CNN News (2010).
35
Taussig, “Redeeming Indigo.”
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
Bibliography

Allen, Oscar Nelson and Ethel Kullmann Allen. “Indigofera” in The Leguminosae, a Source
Book of Characteristics, Uses, and Nodulation (Macmillan: 1981).
Asiaticus, “The Rise and Fall of the Indigo Industry in India” The Economic Journal 22 (1912).
Beeson, Kenneth H. “Indigo Production in the Eighteenth Century,” The Hispanic American
Historical Review 44 (1964).
Bernard, James P. “A Brief History of Natural Dyes,” First Source Worldwide. Accessed April
22, 2019. http://www.fsw.cc/natural-dyes-history/
Bomgardner, Melody M. “These new textile dyeing methods could make fashion more
sustainable,” Chemical and Engineering News 96 (2018). Accessed April 22, 2019.
https://cen.acs.org/business/consumer-products/new-textile-dyeing-methods-make/96/i29
Catena, Adrianna. “Indigo in the Atlantic World,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin
American History (2018).
Chang, Emily. “China’s famed Pearl River under denim threat,” CNN News (2010). Accessed
April 22, 2019.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/04/26/china.denim.water.pollution/index.htm
l
Chen, Weihua. “Xintang pays heavy price for putting world in blue jeans,” China Daily (2017).
Accessed April 22, 2019. http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2017-
07/31/content_30302598.htm
Coon, David L. “Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the Reintroduction of Indigo Culture in South
Carolina,” The Journal of Southern History 42 (1976).
Country Home Magazine, “True Blue,” Chicago Tribune (1988). Accessed April 22, 2019.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-05-22-8801010971-story.html
Das, Anjishnu. “Blue jeans, green drive,” Economic Times (2018). Accessed April 22, 2019.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/environment/developmental-issues/blue-
jeans-green-drive/articleshow/62830392.cms
Flynn, Daniel. “Ancient indigo dye pits rarely survive in Nigeria,” Reuters (2007). Accessed
April 22, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-dyers/ancient-indigo-dye-pits-
barely-survive-in-nigeria-idUSL2668533920070426
Grais, Stuart. “Indigo,” DePaul University. Accessed April 22, 2019.
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/indigo.htm
The Guardian, “The price of success: China blighted by industrial pollution,” The Guardian
(2011). Accessed April 22, 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/feb/09/pollution-china-
manufacturing-towns
Guha, Ranajit. “Neel darpan: The image of a peasant revolt in a liberal mirror,” The Journal of
Peasant Studies 2 (1974).
 Amy Chang
ANTH E-1145
Japan Monthly Web Magazine, “Aizome, the Mystical Japan Blue,” Japan Monthly Web
Magazine (2015). Accessed April 22, 2019. https://japan-
magazine.jnto.go.jp/en/1505_aizome.html

Mattson, Anne. “Indigo in the Early Modern World,” University of Minnesota Bell Library.
Accessed April 22, 2019. https://www.lib.umn.edu/bell/tradeproducts/indigo
McKinley, Catherine E. Indigo: In search of the color that seduced the world (Bloomsbury: New
York, 2011).
National Public Radio, “Indigo: The Indelible Color that Ruled the World,” WBUR News.
Accessed April 22, 2019. https://www.wbur.org/npr/142094103/indigo-the-indelible-
color-that-ruled-the-world
Nature. “Chemists go green to make better blue jeans,” Nature 553 (2018).
Pastoureau, Michel. “Vers un Histoire de la Couleur Bleue,” in Sublime Indigo, eds. Françoise
Viatte and Madeleine Pinault Sørensen (Marseille: Museés de Marseille, 1987).
Purefoy, Christian. “Nigeria's 500-year-old dye tradition under threat,” CNN News (2010).
Accessed April 22, 2019.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/26/nigeria.dye.tradition/index.html
Sandberg, Gosta. Indigo textiles: technique and history (A & C Black Ltd, 1989).
Sharer, G. Terry. “The Indigo Bonanza in South Carolina, 1740-90,” Technology and Culture 12
(1971).
Shujaa, Mwalimu J. and Kenya J. Shujaa. The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage
in North America (SAGE Publications, 2015).
Splitstoser, J.C., T.D. Dillehay, J. Wouters and A. Claro. “Early pre-Hispanic use of indigo blue
in Peru,” Science Advances 2 (2016).
Taussig, Michael. “Redeeming Indigo.” Theory, Culture & Society, 25 (2008).
Tavernier, J.B. Travels in India (Macmillian: London, 1889).