Spectacles of grandeur and fabrics for the brave

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of military and British imperial uniforms among the West India Regiments in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and the role of military dress as a visual representation and conveyer of class, status, power, and identity. The British colonial rulers had long believed that ‘proper’ dress, regardless of location or climate, was required for governing subject people. The chapter explores cultures of differences and the politics of representation within the West India Regiments that policed the British Caribbean colonies. It examines how military dress shaped sartorial communication by its varying need for identification and aims to develop an understanding of how these representations were conformed, contested, and appropriated in relation to cultural space, power, and the body surface. Several questions are central to this study. Did ethnic dress influence military styles in the British West Indies? What sort of race, class, and masculinity issues impacted on the making and use of military dress in colonial Jamaica? How did military dress contort and re-image the black man’s body within the confines of colonial society? The chapter argues that the relationship of military dress to black men’s identity and black masculinity was more complex than has previously been considered and that the military dress of the British West India Regiments was transformed over time into meaningful designs that not only influenced and shaped identities, but also served as a visual reminder and symbol of privilege and elitism that emphasised white dominance and British colonial rule.