Colonial Williamsburg apprentice leather breeches maker Wilson LeCount speaks in the Morgan’s Grove Park pavilion on Saturday. Photo by Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — The American colonists primarily wore clothing made out of fibers like wool, linen and occasionally silk, but a good number of them also took their fashion inspiration from the garb of the Native American tribes — buckskin.

According to Wilson LeCount, an apprentice leather breeches maker at Colonial Williamsburg, records from the 1700s show that residents of West Virginia — then western Virginia — frequently wore buckskin clothing. Made from the skin of a male deer, buckskin could be transformed into a wide variety of clothing options, such as breeches, leggings, shirts, coats and moccasins.

“As a working garment, you couldn’t find anything to top it. For horseback riding, it’s ideal, as well,” LeCount said, in a talk at the final Bee Line March 250th Anniversary Celebration in Morgan’s Grove Park on Saturday. “Whether you were a working man or a sporting man, buckskin breeches, in particular, were universally owned.”

He noted that buckskin was cheaper and sturdier than any of the fabric options of the time, making it a logical choice to have in any wardrobe, especially for those living on what was then known as the American frontier.

The wearing of buckskin grew to become more than a practical choice, however. As unrest stirred between the American colonies and Britain, buckskin turned into a symbol of patriotism, which an increasing number of Americans wore.

“The switch showed a distinction between following fashionable trends in England versus a desire to disregard those fashionable attires for independence’s sake,” LeCount said, mentioning colonists increased their use of buckskin to decrease the amount of profit Britain derived from the sale and taxation of imported goods in the American colonies. “There were other reasons for this, too — a desire to improve domestic manufacturing, but also to disavow the goods that were perceived as ‘decadent’ and ‘luxurious,’ supporting a strongly democratic ideology. Many hoped the nonimportation would help colonists get a break from social pressures, allowing them to finally pay off their debts to English creditors.”

The British, picking up on this preference for buckskin, began using the term “Buckskin” as a negative slur for the American colonists, as a visual symbol of their rough and unrefined ways. The colonists, however, fought back and reinvented the meaning of the slur.

“Buckskin is a material in resistance to English manufacturing. Therefore, Buckskin becomes a title not of barbarism, but of resilience,” LeCount said. “They reclaimed the term, as being representative of American values.”