Natural indigo dyeing is a process associated with many traditional cultures, especially
that of cloth production in West Africa. This practice of cloth production was relocated
to the southern plantations and places as far as Brazil during the 18th and 19th centuries
through the labor of enslaved people. The identifying marks of indigo cloth visible
on the hands and skin of the dyers is the same blue that was seen in the surface of
the soil where the cloth was hung to dry.
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