The Dark Side of Calico
Chintz, often thought of as 'English chintz' in America, is a glazed calico, perennially popular with interior decorators. But chintz is not English in origin, the word derived from the Hindi chimt, translating to 'spattering' or 'stained' in English. Chintz is a glazed calico - calico was first made in Kolkata, India - and both fabrics were unusually popular during the seventeenth eighteenth centuries. But early eighteenth-century France was not the place to sell beautiful Indian calicos, chintzes or muslins: you might end up as a galley slave. The fact that this dangled over the head of anyone in France in possession of Indian-made fabric as if the sword of Damocles deterred very few. (Rather like street drugs today: anyone interested in selling or indulging is less than likely to worry about breaking the law.) The prospect of ending up as a slave condemned to rowing in the bowels of a ship failed to placate irate Parisian merchants. The merchants, aware that few, if any women caught wearing a calico dress would end up in a galley and that smugglers were likely to carry on as normal, proposed that paid thugs ought to roam the streets of Paris and rip offending garments off. Another brilliant idea was to order prostitutes to dress in calico so it would fall out of fashion. Needless to say, neither idea would work.
French textile merchants had long viewed Indian cottons as a threat; their complaints brought about the first ban in 1686. It was awkward, considering that Louis XIV along with certain courtiers profited from the French East India Company. So Indian fabrics were auctioned off in India to be shipped to other European countries. From the French perspective, all that did was open France to smugglers. The fabrics (including plain Indian-woven muslins) were banned again. And again. It was a waste of time. But French cloth manufacturers and merchants would not give up. So yet another ban went on the books in 1712, heralding draconian punishment for owning Indian made fabrics, let alone smuggling. And women dressed in calico were more likely to be arrested than a smuggler because they were easy to spot. Smugglers were not. (Nor were men who wore calico robes de chambre - banyans in England - at home.) One young woman sporting a jacket printed with exotic scarlet flowers was arrested after she was spotted in a shop window. Another was apprehended en route to the boucherie. Buying a toile indienne in 1730s France, whether for a dress or new curtains was a risky business: you could be arrested, detained and held with no trial date. Smugglers too were threatened with the galleys. And death. Incredibly, the demand for toiles indiennes was as strong as ever.
But the silk weavers of Spitalfields had not been happy 1675 when they rioted for three days. The reason? The 'strangers' (i.e. French silk weavers) who worked for less money without completing apprenticeships. New machinery and production methods were other concerns - the weavers were Luddites before there were Luddites - and perhaps simply to draw attention to their plight, they staged a protest that quickly became a violent demonstration. (The Venetian ambassador in London believed they planned to 'massacre' the French there.) The weavers staged another rioted in 1697, this time over the silks the East India Company imported from India. They stormed Company headquarters in London's Leadenhall Street, threatening to raze the house of the EIC governor, the immensely rich Sir Josiah Child.
The Calico Act was passed four years later, banning the importation of Indian fabrics. It had about as much effect as the first few French bans, which is to say none at all. The weavers, strangely enough, did nothing until 1719, when a planned march descended chaos almost immediately, with marchers flinging India ink or highly corrosive aqua fortis (nitric acid) at any and every woman wearing calico. The protestors were read the Riot Act of 1714 (yes, there really was a Riot but refused to disperse until three were shot and wounded by the Horse Guards. Others were arrested, sent to the notorious Marshalsea prison. A second Calico Act would be passed, but not for six years.
Meanwhile, French smugglers set up networks, buying indiennes - as they were called, in America as well as Europe - from foreigners, top bidders at the auctions held in India; Dutchmen, Savoyards, Swiss and Channel Islanders. Switzerland and the Channel Islands were the most common locations from which to smuggle indiennes into France.
Smugglers would take what appear to be incredible chances by bringing toiles indiennes into France. But there were two favoured ports: Avignon (under papal control) and Marseilles, long associated with illegal activity. Stored in warehouses, the exotic textiles were meant to be exported yet never left France; the demand was simply too strong to ignore.
The stronger the demand, the more valuable Indian textiles became in France (and elsewhere; calicoes were coveted in America). The French West Indies had a grim connection to the illicit calico trade, with indiennes used as a form of currency, traded for slaves on the West African coast. Indiennes were brought to the smugglers in Europe who sold the coveted textiles to slave traders. The slaves were then transported to the French West Indies. (Galling to think of human beings traded for pretty patterned fabrics.) It would be legal for decades to own slaves in France and her colonial empire, but against the law to own Indian textiles.
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| An eighteenth-century Indian (Coromandel Coast) yoke, 1710-20. (Painted and dyed cotton chintz.) Victoria and Albert Museum, London. |
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| A dyed and hand-painted Indian calico taken from an English gentleman's banyan, 1750-75. V & A, London. |
Across the Channel, Parliament passed the Calico Act in 1701. Four years earlier, Spitalfields (now part of London) silk weavers stormed East Indian Company headquarters in London's Leadenhall Street, threatening to raze the house of the EIC governor, the immensely rich Sir Josiah Child. But just as bans on Indian fabrics in France were largely ignored, the English ban was brushed to one side and promptly forgotten. Calicoes were very popular: inexpensive, exotic and colourfast, the vivid blues and reds and violets remaining fresh even after laundering. The silk weavers of Spitalfields were not happy.
But the silk weavers of Spitalfields had not been happy 1675 when they rioted for three days. The reason? The 'strangers' (i.e. French silk weavers) who worked for less money without completing apprenticeships. New machinery and production methods were other concerns - the weavers were Luddites before there were Luddites - and perhaps simply to draw attention to their plight, they staged a protest that quickly became a violent demonstration. (The Venetian ambassador in London believed they planned to 'massacre' the French there.) The weavers staged another rioted in 1697, this time over the silks the East India Company imported from India. They stormed Company headquarters in London's Leadenhall Street, threatening to raze the house of the EIC governor, the immensely rich Sir Josiah Child.
The Calico Act was passed four years later, banning the importation of Indian fabrics. It had about as much effect as the first few French bans, which is to say none at all. The weavers, strangely enough, did nothing until 1719, when a planned march descended chaos almost immediately, with marchers flinging India ink or highly corrosive aqua fortis (nitric acid) at any and every woman wearing calico. The protestors were read the Riot Act of 1714 (yes, there really was a Riot but refused to disperse until three were shot and wounded by the Horse Guards. Others were arrested, sent to the notorious Marshalsea prison. A second Calico Act would be passed, but not for six years.
Meanwhile, French smugglers set up networks, buying indiennes - as they were called, in America as well as Europe - from foreigners, top bidders at the auctions held in India; Dutchmen, Savoyards, Swiss and Channel Islanders. Switzerland and the Channel Islands were the most common locations from which to smuggle indiennes into France.
Smugglers would take what appear to be incredible chances by bringing toiles indiennes into France. But there were two favoured ports: Avignon (under papal control) and Marseilles, long associated with illegal activity. Stored in warehouses, the exotic textiles were meant to be exported yet never left France; the demand was simply too strong to ignore.
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| Made in Hindeloopen, the Netherlands, mid-18th century. Indian calico, hand-painted. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. |
The stronger the demand, the more valuable Indian textiles became in France (and elsewhere; calicoes were coveted in America). The French West Indies had a grim connection to the illicit calico trade, with indiennes used as a form of currency, traded for slaves on the West African coast. Indiennes were brought to the smugglers in Europe who sold the coveted textiles to slave traders. The slaves were then transported to the French West Indies. (Galling to think of human beings traded for pretty patterned fabrics.) It would be legal for decades to own slaves in France and her colonial empire, but against the law to own Indian textiles.
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| A rare mid-eighteenth woman's jacket made in the Netherlands with three different Indian calicoes. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. |
And the demand for continued. So the law bent, but slightly, with certain manufacturers granted the right to print Indian-style textiles during the 1740s. This was not good enough for the abbé André Morellet, the philosopher whose powerful convictions earned him a nickname from Voltaire: 'L'Abbé Mords-les' ('Father Bite-them'). Abbé Morellet fiercely criticised the Calico Law. As he wrote in 1758:
'Is it not strange that an otherwise respectable order of citizens solicits terrible punishments such as death and the galleys against Frenchmen, & does so for reasons of commercial interest? Will our descendants be able to believe that our nation was truly as enlightened and civilised as we now like to say when they read that in the middle of the eighteenth century a man in France was hanged for buying in Geneva at 22 sous what he was able to sell in Grenoble for 58?'
Morellet stressed that the French textile industry was not France itself; he was not attacking French law as a whole, merely one facet of it. (Even so, his strong opinions landed him in the Bastille for a spell in 1760; years later he would be befriended by another strong-willed intellectual: Benjamin Franklin.) Perhaps not coincidentally, the ban was lifted in 1759, replaced by a 25% tariff. (All this did was keep the smugglers in business; once in France, who knew if the tariff had been paid or not?) But French textile manufacturers could print Indian-style calicoes now. No chance of being sent to the galleys now.
© Katja Anderson 2020
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