Contrary to popular belief, early English colonists during the 1620s and 1630s did not usually wear black suits or skirts with white collars and cuffs. Black cloth was expensive and hard to obtain, so colonists wore black clothing only on Sundays or for other special occasions (if they had any at all). Colonists commonly wore colors such as brown, gray, green, beige, red, blue, and purple. Early colonists did not wear buckles on their shoes, hats, or clothes. Illustrators in the nineteenth century, three hundred years later, depicted the colonists with buckles on their hats and shoes because at that time, buckles were considered old-fashioned.

Buckles did came in to fashion late in the seventeenth century and early in the eighteenth century … over 70 years after the first permanent colonies in New England. But thinking that the Pilgrims and their contemporaries wore black and white outfits adorned with buckles is like thinking that most people in 2003 dress the way people did in the early 1930s … it simply isn’t true.