“Haint” Blue

Indigo, the long green plant from the legume family, originally used to make the color blue, traces its roots to India but through the African slave trade became immensely valuable in Africa. More powerful than the gun, indigo was used as a form of currency, exchanging one length of cloth for a human body. Enslaved Africans brought their knowledge of indigo cultivation to the United States, and during the 1700s, the profits from indigo surpassed those of sugar and cotton. The importation of enslaved Africans escalated in the Southern Colonies as a result of the demand for Indigo in the mid-18th century. With that demand came a growing dependence on enslaved labor, and led to the legalization of slavery in Georgia to keep the industry thriving. After the Revolutionary War, indigo, once the main export in South Carolina, was replaced by rice and cotton.

Indigo dye and the symbolic use of the color blue for protection are deeply rooted in West African spiritual traditions. “Haint” is an old Southern word for a ghost or evil spirit from the Carolina coastal region. Enslaved Africans on the low country plantations of South Carolina believed blue would protect them and their descendants, the Gullah Geechee, from “haints” and “boo hags” — dangerous evil spirits that bring harm by slipping into your home while you are sleeping. The color was said to trick haints into believing that they’ve stumbled into water, which they cannot cross, or the sky, which will lead them farther from their intended victims.

Now more of a concept than a particular color, “Haint Blue” ranges from light or “sky” blue to periwinkle, as well as various shades of blue-green. It can be seen all over the world and is still prevalent in the southern United States, particularly in South Carolina and coastal Georgia, as well as the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa on window shutters, doors, and porch ceilings.

Donnamarie Baptiste, Curator of “For Those Gathered in the Wind”