Object: Cotton Cloth - Nickanees -Gingham - Guinea Cloth

Image Credits

Fabric samples from the Vrouwe Maria Geertruida, 1788. Nationaal Archief, West India Company Archive, nr. 179.  https://dutchtextiletrade.org/textiles/

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Simple woven cotton fabrics from India were used extensively by the DWIC as clothing for enslaved people in the summer time.   These fabrics were usually blue and white, or all white, some striped or basic plaids.

 

See this article by Carrie Anderson for more in depth discussion of the relationship between the textile trade and the slave trade:  https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/contiguous-cloth-textiles-and-the-slave-trade-in-new-netherland

 

Cloth of this type was listed as part of the cargo of the New Netherland Indian 

https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/document/manifest-cloth-loaded-curacao-new-netherland