Slaves in America wearing tartan

[CollinMacD]

In the late 1700's during the Scottish Clearances, many Scotts settled Cape Haterias, and outer banks in South Carolina. Doing some research on Slavery in the outer banks of Carolina and Virginia, I ran across an interesting story. Two Scotts ironically MacDonalds, deported an English ship in the Charleston, South Carolina. The were walking in the downtown section, as they were on a English ship for many weeks, they spoke English and did not speak Gaelic even to each other. As they came to a corner of a street on the blind corner they heard two people speaking Gaelic talking about harvesting rice. One Scot turned to the other and stated, see so many Scots are here, it should like we are back in Moire. They turned the corner and sitting on a bench were two black slaves who were speaking Gaelic. Did not know English at all. Point is the Scottish settled much of the coastlines of North and South Carolina, and were slave owners, and they language used was Gaelic. Just thought that was very interesting.

One other point, many of those plaids were used throughout the 17th 18th and 19th centuries. Many in the Confederate Army wore homespun cotton shirts, in various plaids. Slaves would weave the material and sew clothing, and of course make clothing for themselves too. Not unusual at all to see the browns, deep reds, yellow. Most dyes were from acorns, and various barks from trees. During the late years of the Civil War, Confederate Gray was hard to get, so they work "Butternut" a brownish Tan, color like a dark mustard yellow, or brown. Dyes were home made by boiling the bards and various nuts and berries to make the colors.. Even Stonewall Jackson had a "Butternut" uniform given to him by his wife. He wore it once, and his troops called him a Jim Dandy, so he resumed wearing his blue Union Frock Coat, same coat he wore the night he was shot by his own men in Chancellorsville. South had a long history of those types plaids.