How India’s Cloth Changed Human History
The global demand for India's cloth intensified Europe’s industrial revolution, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and today’s climate change problems.
Photo credit: Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
Hello from Toronto!
Over the weekend, I visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), which had an exhibition called: “The Cloth that Changed the World.”
It explored how Indian’s artisans created their printed and painted cotton fabrics to decorate our bodies, our gods and our homes throughout history.
More than that, the exhibition explored the role these cloths played in intensifying Europe’s industrial revolution, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and today’s climate change problems.
The Story Begins With… Chintz
A chintz is painted or printed cotton. It comes from the Hindi term chint, meaning ‘speckled, spotted, variegated or sprayed’.
Chintz were created by Indian master artisans who underwent an arduous process of 17 steps that included things like drawing, mordanting (fixing a dye), resisting (applying colour) and dyeing among other steps I can’t quite remember.
The children of these master craftsman would start learning skills at a young age. They learned a specialized step of the process and became highly skilled artisans in it. About 8 to 10 craftsmen were involved in creating each yard of fabric.
So, being labour-intensive, stunning and rare, meant that chintz quickly became one of the most valuable pieces to own worldwide. Not surprising. It was scarce, unique, hard to create, difficult to attain…
Naturally, the global demand for them spread like wildfire.
Photo credit: Ayelen Osorio (from the Royal Ontario Museum)
Indian’s Painted and Printed Cottons Changed Human History
People in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and North America began demanding chintz. Many even journeyed to the far away land of India to purchase these coveted pieces.
What’s fascinating is that each region adapted the chintz to represent their political, social and religious beliefs. Let’s take Egypt as an example.
For over one thousand years, Egypt was importing large quantities of chintz from western India for clothing and home furnishings. The design for this Islamic market included geometric shapes, stylized plants and birds, and Arabic inscriptions. Usually cottons painted in two colours and in block prints were made for the common people, while cottons painted in three colours were for the higher class.
Egypt’s arid environment preserved many chintz and according to Carbon-14 testing, some pieces that are with us today prove to be over 700 years old. The crazy part is that they’re still displaying vivid colours! A major contrast to today’s pieces that lose colour after a single wash. I don’t know about you, but sometimes a t-shirt these days barely lasts a year.
We have become a people who make clothes that do not last and that are not nearly as sophisticated. We have become wasteful and less artistic. We just seemed to have regressed.
Europe Becomes the World’s Cotton Cloth Printer And Slavery Intensifies
From 1650 onwards, craftsmen all around Europe attempted to print cottons using India’s methods and techniques. But there was a catch.
Turns out recreating India’s bright colours, fine details and arduous process was pretty fucking hard.
But by 1750, Britain and France mastered mass printing cloths. British manufacturers developed machines and factories to spin and weave cotton, launching the Industrial revolution.
Following this invention, Britain replaced India as the world’s biggest cotton cloth exporter; a title they’d held for over a millennia.
The problem was that now Britain needed TONS of cotton.
To supply British textile factories, North America began growing cotton at a massive scale. Although Europeans had enslaved Africans since the 1500s, it was the growing global demand for cotton cloth and gorgeous chintz that expanded and intensified the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 1700s.
According to ROM, between 1783 and 1808, slavers trafficked 170,000 Africans to the U.S. specifically to produce cotton. Another 1,000,000 enslaved men, women and children suffered further trauma at sea.
The cotton industry and the violence it relied upon contributed to a deep systemic and racial inequality that still exists today. Add to that the fact that we have fast, unsustainable fashion and you can see how quickly things have gone south.
One More Note…
India’s textile innovations had a major influence on fashion, trade, and industries all around the world from Cairo to Holland to Ottawa to Tokyo.
India moulded cultures by imitating itself and blending it with other cultures. Those who purchased these chintz saw themselves while at the same time felt inspired by this magical, foreign and exotic world called India.
India had a penetration and influence into people’s hearts and minds in a way that was non-violent but deeply personal.
Many historians claim “India dressed the world,” but these cloths did more than that. They connected people, moulded cultures, influenced how they created art and carried out their culture. They literally changed the world.
Next time you wear a patterned t-shirt with, you can thank India for that.