Life for the enslaved Africans on the plantations
Jonathan Greenland, Director of the Museum of Jamaica, is one of the Jamaica Wales Alliance team and comes from Penarth. Jonathan explained that the archaeologists on digs on plantations around the 'slave villages' found evidence of making clothes with buttons and needles found.
Prof Steeve Buckeridge confirms that: "Over time, as slave stock increased, slave owners sought to reduce the cost of clothing. They began to distribute the raw material, needles, threads, pins, scissors, buckles, tapes and buttons to the slaves to make their own clothes." Many thanks to Steeve for taking an interest in the project and recognising that our focus on Welsh Plains Cloth is fascinating and timely. I am familiar with Welsh Plains and I am also glad you’re in touch with Chris Evans whose work I have read. Kathleen Staples has also done some work on this cloth.
http://www.januka.co.uk/what-jamaican-ancestors-wore-for-sugar-plantation-work