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Post by hawkeyes on Nov 2, 2021 4:48:49 GMT -7
Gentlemen the conversation is good and well thought. Not saying much as my thoughts are being reflected through you all, well done!
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Post by paranger on Nov 2, 2021 7:08:15 GMT -7
That works out well for me, because my reenacting is of a poor man and is centered on the Kentucky frontier, at that time part of Virginia. So, I can use some cotton in my kit with a clear conscience. Good discussion. Spence There's the key: you know WHO, WHERE, and WHEN you wish to represent and scoped your research accordingly.
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Post by brokennock on Nov 2, 2021 12:55:19 GMT -7
Gentlemen the conversation is good and well thought. Not saying much as my thoughts are being reflected through you all, well done! Yup, I'm finding myself in the same boat. Also in my often found position of answers to my questions, really in this case more just an observation I found surprising, leading to more questions. Or at least pondering other things, one of which I'll post as a new topic.
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Post by spence on Nov 6, 2021 11:35:15 GMT -7
In a post to another thread Sicilianhunter said: "I will pose this : Wouldn't it be entirely possible for someone in a region where cotton wasn't produced to either obtain an article of clothing made from it or the fabric itself by trading?"
There are literally hundreds of items listed for sale in The 18th century Pennsylvania Gazette, Virginia Gazette, South Carolina Gazette and others which say they are made of cotton, and many others which are but don't indicate it. Cotton was by no means rare, was readily available to be bought, if you judge by the advertising.
When I read Mark Baker's book _Sons of a Trackless Forest_, I found some very interesting entries in the invoices and personal accounts. In going over the lists of goods bought and sold by the company of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan, trading in southwestern Illinois in 1768, I saw many, many types of cloth detailed. Here's a list of the items which I gleaned that say they are of cotton. These are mostly from lists of goods bought at Philadelphia, shipped via Fort Pitt to Kaskaskia for sale there to the French, Indian, military and civilian British populace, as well as the company hunters. Some of the goods were then shipped from Kaskaskia to Vincennes for sale there.
candle wicks (cotton and tow) mixed Cotton Romats blue Cotton Romats 5 lb. 15 oz. spun cotton yard wide Cotton Cloth No. 1 (two entries, one 305 yds. the other 230 ells) Cotton Romalls light ground Cotton yard Cotton Check
The following from one invoice:
1 2 purple 5 2 Purple ground 2 fine purple ground 1 fine 2 color fancy 1 2 reds and black 2 dark ground Chintz 1 super fine purple Copper plate 1 dark ground Chintz 1 fine purple ground 2 fine 2 colors fancy 1 fine 2 colors Pompadore 4 fine Pompadore with Green 3 fine 2 Kinds with black and green 3 ditto 1 fine Blue, Furniture Copper Plate 2 Pompadore ground Chintz 9/8 black Furniture Cotton cotton cap (bought by a hunter) red spotted Cotton red flowered Cotton with sprig with red flowers with Pompadore yellow spriged Cotton red grounded Cotton single purple Cotton 32 Fine Bordered Cotton Caps 15 Blue and White Cotton handkerchiefs 1 cotton shirt (bought by the trader for his own use)
The names of fabrics have always been one of the most difficult things for me to get straight. Many fabrics names don’t give a clue to the fiber used, and many are cotton by another name, as chintz, for instance.
Spence
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Post by brokennock on Nov 6, 2021 14:32:32 GMT -7
Any idea what Romats and Romals are?
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Post by paranger on Nov 6, 2021 16:29:06 GMT -7
Something to keep in mind about trade lists: they were specifically tailored for native tastes - right down to specific regions or even tribes. Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan was well established in the trade, as noted, as a Phila. supplier. These goods were nearly all imported from England and in some cases manufactured specifically for native markets.
Indian trade goods often have a reputation for being of lesser quality than other colonial imports, but such was not always the case. By many traders' accounts, natives were saavy and discriminating when it came to judging trade goods, and evinced stylistic preferences and a definite appreciation of quality, albeit as viewed through a different cultural lens. Consider silks and large quantities of trade silver, for example - not items which typically bedecked the frontier housewife - BUT, they were still traded to natives (whether for land, furs, or deerskins) at an economic advantage relative to European markets.
In other words, the presence of east Indian chintz imported from south Asia via England on a trade list should not be interpreted as "chintz was cheap and common among colonists on the mid 18th c. frontier."
That same chintz passed through Carlisle on the Forbes Road to get to Kaskaskia via Ft. Pitt in the 1760s, and yet the first time it appears in a woman's petticoat or short gown in a Cumberland County household inventory was 1781 (Hersh & Hersh, 73).
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Post by spence on Nov 7, 2021 17:09:20 GMT -7
A fair description of the usual Indian trading lists and goods, and I'm sure it would apply to some of the business carried on by Baynton, Wharton and Morgan at Kaskaskia, maybe a lot of it. But not all. The invoices and inventories that Baker provides us with show that a good deal of their trade was with the French and British populations. Just one example...one entire appendix is made up of vegetable seeds for the garden, dozens of them, the same for flower seeds, bulbs and sets, and several kinds of fruit trees.
Soap, candle wicks, shoes, carpenters tools, pitch and caulking, "12 doz. large good barcelona Handkerchiefs for Cravats", etc., etc., not what I would expect as Indian trade goods.
Spence
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Post by armando on Nov 7, 2021 17:16:17 GMT -7
Interesting reads here fellas!
Saw this on another forum regarding cotton:
Thomas Asbury wrote this as a captured officer in with the Convention Army.
“The Shrub which supplies our manufactures with cotton, is much cultivated in this Province, and the inhabitants of the lower sort, through scarceness and difficulty of procuring clothing for themselves and their negroes, pay greater attention to it at present than tobacco....the weather being so extremely hot, woolen clothes are insufferable, therefore from necessity, and as it the custom of this country, the officers wear cotton habiliments, the cotton of which mine is made I obtained form my Landlord and see the whole process of its growth and manufacture from seed been being sown, till it came off the loom."
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Post by spence on Nov 8, 2021 8:58:20 GMT -7
Many years ago a similar discussion about the use of cotton took place on the web site RevWar. At that time the accepted consensus was that cotton was too expensive for anyone but the well-to-do, not available to the lower classes. I collected a very good but lengthy post in opposition to that idea which was made by Bryan P. Howard of the Dept. of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. One part of it was a series of entries in the diary of one John Horrower, an indentured servant in the area of Fredricksburg, Virginia, covering about two years. It's long, but I think worth reading because it deals with the day-to-day, granular activities of an individual, makes the history seem more real to me. Explanatory comments by Howard in parentheses.
8/7/74 (writing his wife): "As for myself I supose you wou'd scarce know me now, there being nothing either brown, blew, or black about me but the head and feet, I being Dressed in short cloath Coat, vest Coat, and britches all made of white cotton without any lyning, and threads stockins & wearing my own hair curled round like a wigg. At present a suite of Cloaths costs five and twenty shillings here of making which I really think very high" (a servant's freedom suit looking almost exactly like he describes is preserved in the Smithsonian, dated to 1775 from Rhode Island. It is cotton lined with linen for both breeches and coat).
12/6/74 (letter to his wife): "There grows here plenty of extream fine Cotton which after being pict clean and readdy for the cards is sold at a shilling the pound; And I have at this time, a great high Gir[l]e Carline as Black as the D--s. A--se spinning some for me for which I must pay her three shillings the pound for spinning it... Im determined to have a webb of Cotton Cloath According to my own mind, of which I hope you and my infants shall yet wear a part"
5/21/75 "This day I hade sent me a present from Mrs. Porter in Fredg. two silk Vestcoats and two pair cotton britches all of them having been verry little wore by Mr. Porter"
1/13/76 After 12 O Clock I went six Miles into the Forrest to one Daniel Dempsies to see if they woud spin three pound of Cotton to run 8 yds. per lb., 2/3ds. of it belonging to Miss Lucy Gains for a goun & 1/3d. belonging to myself for Vestcoats" (Gaines was a house servant).
1/15/76 "Miss Lucy spinning my croop of Cotton at night after her work is done to make me a pair of gloves"
2/10/76 (Harrower buys indigo and hard soap presumably for dying his cotton cloth he is having woven)
2/16/76 "At night Delivered to Jno McDearman (a local weaver) +1 1/2 lb. pickt Cotton at 1/6 per lb. (1 shilling sixpence).
2/23/76 Reports of McDearman that the "Cotton [is] to run nigh five yds. per lb."
2/25/76 "In the evening Mr. Frazer... made me a present of a new Cotton Handkierchiff worth 2/ of his Mother's spinning & weaving & hemed for me by his sister"
3/30/76 "went to Daniel Dempsie's & agreed with his wife to spin the 3 lb. Cotton I carried there 27th Jany. last to run 6 Yds. per lb. at 3/ per."
4/27/76 "I went to Christr. Becks & his wife promised to spin for me [blank]lbs. Cotton to make me Vaistcoats"
6/14/76 "Went to Jno. McDearmans & had 6 Yds. stript Cotton warped for 2 Veastcoats and two handkercheifs, all preparred at my own expence"
6/22/76 "At noon carried 4 Yds. Cotton Jeans (I had spun & wove here) to Mr. Becks to make me a short Coat for sumer wear"
6/26/76 "At 5 pm I went to Mr. Becks & hade a short Coat cut out of cotton cloth wove Jeans. I bought the cotton and paid for spinning it at the rate of 2/6 per lb. and one shilling per Yd. for Weaving".
7/3/76 "recd. my short Coat made and paid 5/ for doing it"
Spence
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Post by brokennock on Nov 8, 2021 15:37:39 GMT -7
"...servant's freedom suit looking almost exactly like he describes is preserved in the Smithsonian, dated to 1775 from Rhode Island. It is cotton lined with linen for both breeches and coat..)
Why would one line a cotton garment with linen?
I believe you have posted this elsewhere before as it looks familiar, thank you for reposting it here. It is very interesting. Where is the indentured servant's wife that he has to write to her?
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Post by spence on Nov 8, 2021 17:30:15 GMT -7
I can't answer any of those. I can guess that the man's wife is in Britain, that was a common situation at the time. Some of my wife's family experienced that. The husband elected to come to the colonies as an indentured servant because of economic hardship, sent for his family when he got settled and was able to do so, sometimes at the end of the indenture, which were commonly for 4-7 years.
Spence
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Post by spence on Nov 8, 2021 23:02:10 GMT -7
brokennock said: "I believe you have posted this elsewhere before as it looks familiar...." Your memory is better than mine, no surprise these days. A search of TMF shows I had posted some parts of that same diary there in March of 2019, but I did not recall that. Searching for that, I was delighted to experience one of those delightful "the circle just closed" moments. This item that I had posted also showed up in the search results. _Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It_, 1957, George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin: "The riflemen were called up by the Congress from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Down on the Rappahannock River in Virginia, John Harrower, an indentured servant teaching a plantation school, watched a rifle captain choose his company. The number of volunteers far exceeded the number of men called for, so to avoid offending the men, the captain set up a competition: “He took a board of a foot square and with chalk drew the shape of a moderate nose in the center and nailed it up to a tree at one hundred and fifty yards distance, and those who came nighest the mark with a single ball was to go. By the first forty or fifty that fired, the nose was all blown out of the board, and by the time his company was up, the board shared the same fate.” Same fellow, no doubt, and I had never made the connection. It's a good day. Students revel in such little moments, and at baseline that's what I am. Spence
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Post by spence on Nov 8, 2021 23:07:57 GMT -7
Sorry, double post, and I don't know how to delete one. BH?
Spence
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Post by brokennock on Nov 10, 2021 9:22:15 GMT -7
Sorry, double post, and I don't know how to delete one. BH? Spence Much of what you say/write is worth repeating.
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Post by brokennock on Nov 10, 2021 9:25:07 GMT -7
brokennock said: "I believe you have posted this elsewhere before as it looks familiar...." Your memory is better than mine, no surprise these days. A search of TMF shows I had posted some parts of that same diary there in March of 2019, but I did not recall that. Searching for that, I was delighted to experience one of those delightful "the circle just closed" moments. This item that I had posted also showed up in the search results. _Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It_, 1957, George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin: "The riflemen were called up by the Congress from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Down on the Rappahannock River in Virginia, John Harrower, an indentured servant teaching a plantation school, watched a rifle captain choose his company. The number of volunteers far exceeded the number of men called for, so to avoid offending the men, the captain set up a competition: “He took a board of a foot square and with chalk drew the shape of a moderate nose in the center and nailed it up to a tree at one hundred and fifty yards distance, and those who came nighest the mark with a single ball was to go. By the first forty or fifty that fired, the nose was all blown out of the board, and by the time his company was up, the board shared the same fate.” Same fellow, no doubt, and I had never made the connection. It's a good day. Students revel in such little moments, and at baseline that's what I am. Spence Not so sure my memory is that much better. Sometimes things just look familiar. I just wish I had all the little tidbits of quotes and period references that I've copied and pasted then emailed to myself, or taken screenshots of, in some searchable organized format,,, because my memory isn't that good. More of a series of vague recollections.
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