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What is a Seroon? Bales of cotton were big prizes during the War of 1812. But if you look at newspapers from the period, especially those who recorded the prizes taken by American privateers, you find references to a seroon. A word so out of use today, your spell checker will mark it as a misspelled word. Seroons, as it turns out, is a bale or package covered with hide or simply wood bound with hide. During the period is was the customary way to package indigo. Indigo was most commonly used for blue dyes… and vitally important to US Army uniform production. It appears a very dark version of blue, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word indigo comes from the Latin for "Indian", as the dye was originally imported to Europe from India. Naturally enough, obtaining a cargo of indigo seroons was considered quite the prize indeed. One captured load of 237 seroons of indigo was valued at $50,000. Not a bad haul.
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