Calicoe Trade Cloth
(Above image: A "Document reproduction" Vegetable dyed
block-printed cotton cloth imported from India--the item on the left is called
"Lg. Floral and Vine-Purple" 01/31/2003 SKU: 662-9695 at
Jo-Ann's fabrics)
It seems that Calcut, Callico, Callicoe, Calicoe, or Calico, as we now know
it, cloth and clothing was traded to native people in the southeast on a regular
basis. As early as 1716, reference is made to garments made of it for
women:
From Journals of the Commissioners of the
Indian Trade, South Carolina (click the link for the full trade list)
"An Account of the Prices of Goods, settled between Col. James Moore
and the Conjuror, the 30th Day of April, 1716, as they are allways to be sold
to his People, viz.,
"A calico Petticoat . . . . . 14 [skins]"
Even later, the yard good was being traded:
From the Mississippi Provincial Archives, 1763-1766, English Dominion,
Volume I, by Dunbar Rowland, Brandon Printing Co., Nashville, 1911, page 215.
Price of Trade Goods in the Southeast
[1763-1766] (click the link for the full trade list)
2 yds of Strouds--8 lbs. leather
1 Blanket--8 do
1 do Shag end-- 6 "
1 Snaffle Bridle-- 4 ditto
1 White Shirt-- 3 "
1 Check do-- 4 "
1 Fringed Housing-- 10 "
1 Laced ditto-- 6 "
1 Pr Gartering-- 4 "
1 do Dutch pretties-- 2 "
3 yds Quality binding-- 1 "
2 do Silk ferret-- 1 "
1 do Indian Callico-- 4 "
1 Trading Gun-- 16 "
In 1778 John Stuart, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, deemed it necessary to
have 30 Indian Callicoe shirts for the Choctaw congress (link)
And in 1786 the cloth by the yard shows up in several trader's inventories:
Account [of] the State of Georgia with the
Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1786 / [endorsed by] John Habersham
(click the link for the full trade list) shows
that
John King
, Indian trader, received 1 pc of 14 Yds. of "Callico"
John Galphin received 29 yards of
calico in Nov. 1786 (link)
Daniel McMurphy received 36-3/4 yards
in Nov. 1786. (link)
Information on the fabric itself:
The "bible" on historical textiles is: Montgomery, Florence
M. Textiles in America, 1650-1870 : a dictionary based on original
documents : prints and paintings, commercial records, American merchants'
papers, shopkeepers' advertisements, and pattern books with original swatches of
cloth. New York : Norton, 1984. ISBN: 0393017036
An image that may be helpful is available in the article: All the Rage: Cotton in Europe in
the17th & 18th Centuries. by Sona
Hairabedian. Her discussion of the use of cotton in clothing is
interesting in and of itself.
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