and closely allied to one of the indigoes of the Niger and Egypt; of the Nerium or pala indigoes (Wrightia tinctoria) of South India, the plant which would appear to have been used prior to the introduction of the species of Indigofera, of the indigoes of Burma (such as Gymnema tingens); Cochin-China (Spialnthes tinctoria); and of North China and Siberia (Polygonum tinctorium). These and many others are plants which have been, or are being, used as sources of this particular dye in some parts of India...."
"Periplus of the Erythroean Sea (80 A. D.) speaks of Indigo as exported from Barbarikon, a Skythian town on the Indus and the port for the metropolis—Minnagar. Marco Polo (1298) gives a grotesque, though accurate, account of the Native indigo industry as seen by him at Coilum (Quilon). "It is made of a certain herb which is gathered, and (after the roots have been removed) is put into great vessels upon which they pour water and then leave it till the whole of the plant is decomposed…" Afanasi Nikitin (1468), a Russian traveller, speaks of Kanbat (Cambay) where the indigo grows. Vasco da Gama (1498), Varthema (1503), and Barbosa (1516), who all visited Gujerat and the west-coast of Bombay, make no mention of indigo, from which circumstance it may be inferred to have been a comparatively unimportant industry. Garcia de Orta (1563) however gives a short account of its cultivation and manufacture in Western India……"
However Finch in his Travels in India in Purchas' Pilgrimes, 1607, "affords the first definite conception of the indigo industry of india, or rather of Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, and from him perhaps dates the conception of the plant being an Indigofera..."
"The East India Company published in 1836 a series of reports and letters regarding the indigo industry...."
"That work will be found of the greatest possible interest, and should be consulted for historic details. Mr. Minden Wilson has written in the India Planters' Gazette a
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