Welsh Plains
It might come as a surprise, but there is a link between the Welsh Woollen Industry and African Slavery. In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries the Woollen Industry was concentrated in the old counties of Merioneth and Montgomeryshire. It produced a cloth that was often known as "Welsh Plains" - a plain woollen cloth. It sometimes had its nap raised, giving it the name "Welsh Cottons". However, it had another name - "Negro Cloth".
The Welsh writer, traveller and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726 - 1798) (right, by Thomas Gainsborough, National Museum of Wales) in his Travels in Wales notes that Welsh Plains were used for "covering the poor negroes in the West Indies."
It seems that the destination of the wool was common knowledge, even then. The wool was spun and woven in Wales, then sent, via the poor roads of Mid and North Wales to Shrewsbury by pack horse. The buyers would be the Shrewsbury Drapers' Guild. They had a monopoly on these cloths until the Liverpool Merchants sent their own representatives as the port became more important in the Atlantic trade. The role of Shrewsbury and the Welsh connection is also noted by the South Carolina plantation owner Elias Ball (c. 1780) who investigated where the cloth for his slaves came from.
The people who sheared the sheep, carded and spin the wool and wove it were ordinary Welsh people in what was still, for the most part, a cottage industry. The cloth would be finished in fullling mills before being sent for sale. While not all Merioneth and Montgomeryshire wool was destined for the West Indies, that trade became a vital part of the growth of the Welsh Woollen Industry in those areas.
Why was wool the cloth of choice? It was hard wearing and comparatively cheap. Even in the West Indies, nights could be cold. A suit of Welsh wool would only last about a year. This shows not any fault in the cloth, but how hard the work was for the slaves who wore it. This also meant that new batches of cloth would be needed every year, ensuring the continued need for wool production.
The Welsh spinners and weavers did not make much money themselves from the trade. It was the traders in cloth who benefited most. It could be said that, apart from the cloth traders and the plantation owners, this was a trade that exploited most engaged in it.
In 2019 there was a heritage project on Welsh Plains. Please view the associated website: From Sheep to Sugar.
On that website there is an article by Dr Chris Evans of the University of South Wales, who has done much research into Wales' links to the African Slave Trade. The direct link to his article is here, and his book Slave Wales is available from University of Wales Press.