Slave clothing and African-American culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Past & Present, August, 1995 by Shane White, Graham White

Not only is the sheer quantity of clothes owned by these slaves striking, but it is also clear that many of the items acquired by them - for example, the "crimson velvet cape" and the "blue sarsanet [fine silk] handkerchief", let alone the intriguing "high heel shoes" - were recognizable insignia of gentility.

Slave artisans, too, could assemble impressive wardrobes. According to his owner, the "proper Dress" of Abraham, a bricklayer, who ran away in South Carolina in 1771, "consisted of a Coat, Waistcoat, and long Trowsers of blue Plains, good Stockings, Shoes, Silver Buckles, and an old Beaver Hat". On special occasions, demanding still more extravagant display, Abraham would don a "dark Olive-coloured Coat, and blue Breeches, both of superfine Cloth". Jachne, a cooper, also of South Carolina, who absconded in that same year, wore unremarkable clothes, but also carried with him "a suit of scarlet camblet, faced with green, a scarlet cloth waistcoat, trimmed with gold lace, and a gold laced hat".(15) These slaves, too, had managed to incorporate items of elite costume into their dress.

It was not uncommon for slave-owners to remark on their slaves' great love of fine clothing. Anthony, a young slave "handy at most any kind of business", who ran away from his master in Talbot County, Maryland in 1787, was "very fond of shewy dress". George, "a likely fellow" who went missing in Richmond, Virginia in 1788, was not only "very fond of dancing and playing of his antic tricks", but also "fond of dress". "[H]is cloaths I can't recollect", his owner Robert Rawlings conceded, "as he has a great variety of them, and of the best kind". Not surprisingly, Jenny, who ran away in Philadelphia in 1782, taking with her:

a bundle of cloaths, consisting of one light chintz gown, a small figure with red stripes, one dark ditto with a large flower and yellow stripes, seven yards of new stamped linen, a purple flower and stripe, a pink-coloured moreen petticoat, a new black peelong bonnet, a chip hat trimmed with gauze and feathers, four good shifts, two not made up, and two a little worn, four aprons, two white and two check, one pair of blue worsted shoes with white heels, [and who] had in her shoes a large pair of silver buckles,

was said by her master to be "very fond of dress" and, more opaquely, "particularly of wearing queen's night-caps".(16)

For many whites, the sight of a well-dressed slave, particularly one displaying expensive items of apparel, aroused suspicion that the wearer might be involved in some sort of illicit activity: framers of the South Carolina Negro Act of 1735 referred disapprovingly to the number of Negroes who wore "clothes much above the condition of slaves, for the procuring whereof they use sinister and evil methods".(17) There is ample evidence that many blacks did steal clothes. Sometimes they took garments belonging to other slaves; the owner of Cloe, who had run away in 1783, surmised that her "unwillingness to return now, is not less owing to the shame of seeing the negroes whom she deprived of their cloathes, than the dread of correction". More usually, however, African Americans stole from whites. Tom, who ran from Arthur Neil of Charleston in 1765, wore his own clothes, but took with him "a dark coloured jacket with vellum button holes, a linen jacket" and several other items belonging to his master.(18)