Question

Growers of wood in Europe saw __________ as a crop which would provide competition to their earnings.

Answer 1

• The price of Indigo was very high and only small amounts of indigo from India reached the markets in Europe.
• To make blue and violet dyes, the cloth manufacturers of Europe had to depend on another plant called wood.
• In Europe, Wood was easily available as the plant was available in temperate zones.
• Wood was grown in parts of Britain, Germany, Southern France, and Northern Italy.
• Import of Indigos was banned by European Governments as the European wood producers were worried about the competition from Indigo.
• In the tropics, the Indigo plants were grown.
• To dye cloth, Indian indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Britain, France and Italy, by the thirteenth century.
• A dye from the wood produced a dull and pale colour whereas a rich blue color was produced by the Indigo. Hence Indigo was preferred as a dye by the cloth dyers.
• There was pressure on the European Government by the European cloth producers to lift the ban on Indigo imports, by the seventeenth century.
• The Spanish began cultivating indigo in Venezuela, English in Jamaica, Portuguese in Brazil, French in St Domingue in the Caribbean islands.
• In many parts of North America also many indigo plantations started coming up.