By Rafe Calder
A brownish liquid. Add acid and it goes yellowish red. Add alkali and it goes purple. Wikipedia describes the extract of logwood in exactly those terms, and the three colors tell you why a tree from southern Mexico mattered to dyers on the other side of the Atlantic.
The tree
Wikipedia gives the botanical name as Haematoxylum campechianum, a flowering tree in the legume family. It is also called logwood or campeachy wood. The genus name comes from Greek words meaning “blood” and “wood”. The tree is native to southern Mexico and was later introduced to the Caribbean, northern Central America and other places. The article gives its conservation status as Least Concern, assessed by the IUCN in 2020.
The dye
The article says the tree was used for a long time as a natural dye, and that its wood chips still provide haematoxylin, a stain used in histology to color tissue. The dye was used on textiles and paper, and the bark and leaves have medical uses. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, according to the same article, the wood was logged and exported to Europe for dyeing fabrics.
Campeche, and a caution
The Campeche article says the port exported logwood, called palo de Campeche or “dye stick”, from early times. The logwood article itself does not connect the name Campeche to a place. So the link between the two rests on the Campeche article’s wording, and we mark it as one source’s statement. Our reading: the tree and the port share a name because the port shipped the wood. That is our inference, and the logwood article does not draw it.
Loggers, privateers and a border
In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the logwood article says, English, Dutch and French loggers cut logwood in territory Spain claimed. Spain sent privateers against them, including Juan Corso’s cruise in 1680. In 1715 Spanish forces expelled many loggers, who went to Nassau. Belize, the article says, developed from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century logging camps set up by the English.
A government report cited in the article gives about 4,965 tons exported to England from 1713 to 1716, and calls it a minor industry compared with tobacco. We give the tonnage as the article gives it. We leave out the value it attaches, which is a money figure.
Dates in order
- 1616: license to cut and trade logwood in Yucatán, according to the Campeche article on Wikipedia.
- Seventeenth to nineteenth century: logwood logged and exported to Europe for dyeing, according to Wikipedia.
- 1680: Juan Corso’s cruise against loggers, according to Wikipedia.
- 1713 to 1716: about 4,965 tons exported to England, according to a report cited by Wikipedia.
- 1715: Spanish forces expel many loggers, according to Wikipedia.
- 2020: IUCN assessment, Least Concern, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
The logwood article is about a plant and its trade. The Campeche article is about a port and its defenses. They agree that the wood was a commodity and that it drew pirates and privateers, though they put the emphasis in different places. The Campeche article says a license meant to curb piracy increased it. The logwood article describes Spanish privateers sent against the loggers. We do not reconcile the two accounts.
What kind of sources these are
Both sources are Wikipedia articles, which anyone can edit. The tonnage comes from a report the article cites and we did not open. We read no dyer’s, botanist’s or museum source for this piece, and we make no claims about how the dye is used today beyond the stain and pH facts the article gives.
Questions a buyer would ask
If a textile or a piece is described as dyed with logwood, ask what the dye was fixed with, since the article says the extract changes color with acidity. Ask whether the color is expected to change with washing or light. We have no source on either point, and we make no promise. Ask who dyed it and where. We name no dyer.
Why the three colors matter
A dye that changes color with acidity is a different kind of material from one that stays put. The article gives the three states plainly: brownish when neutral, yellowish red in acid, purple in alkali. It also says the same extract is used in histology to stain tissue, which tells you the chemistry is the same wherever the wood goes. Our reading: a dyer working with logwood would have to control the acidity of the bath to get a steady color. That is our inference from the three states and not a statement in the article, and we have not read a dyer’s account.
A note on the timeline
The sources do not agree on a single date for the start of the trade. The Campeche article says the port exported logwood “from early times”. The logwood article says the wood was exported to Europe from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Both can be true, since “early” in a port’s history may be the sixteenth or the seventeenth century. We do not narrow it.
What we left out
We left out the money values and the comparison with tobacco beyond the single statement. We left out the medical uses of the bark and leaves, since they are not our business. We left out the tree’s introduced range in detail. We left out ink, because the article does not mention it.
Roam first. Shop later.