ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the dynamic interaction between the cloth and clothing directed at slave populations. It highlights the roles of institutions and individuals in shaping markets and the provisioning of ready-made clothing at both the local and global levels. In comparison to the orphans’ attire, the garments provided for slaves were distinguished by two distinctive characteristics. First, male slaves were not given shoes, socks or hats. Second, clothing was made solely from coarser fabrics. The chapter argues that the circulation of clothing, both at global and local levels, contributed significantly to the creation of the cheaper clothing category of slave clothing, taking the eighteenth-century Dutch Cape Colony as a case study. It demonstrates how the VOC, centred in Batavia, made Indian- and other Asian-manufactured ready-made clothing into trade commodities. The chapter presents the details of slave clothing in the Cape Colony and confirms that the cost of slave clothing in the eighteenth-century Cape Colony was surprisingly low.
