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The Role of Plant Substances in Jamaican Slave Dress

Africans brought aspects of their culture with them to the Americas. These African customs and beliefs or ‘Africanisms’ that were retained in the African Diasporaenabled Africans to maintain a vital link with their ancestral homeland. As slavesin an alien environment, Africans shaped, modified, and adapted these cultural elements based on their experiences, needs and circumstances. This resulted in a vibrant Creole culture in Jamaican society. These African cultural characteristics were also transmitted to the descendants of African slaves. Moreover, “Africanisms” persisted not as archaic retention, but as vibrant cultural features that continuedto grow and develop, in a sense, establishing new roots in a new environment this contributed to the enrichment of the Americas with sophisticated and profound knowledge of herbalism, mental healing and funeral customs to name a few. African cultural features were retained and nurtured in Jamaica and other areas of the Diaspora because they guaranteed the survival of Africans and their descendants against European attempts at cultural annihilation. This study examines one aspect of slav and freed women's dress: the usage of plant fibres, pigments, and bark in the production and care of clothing. I argue that the usage of plant substances in this manner was a feature of cultural retention and expression among African women and their descendants in Jamaica.