Barbados Sugar’s Unseen History\ Sugar Iron and Fire

Sweetness Forged in Fire



Barbados Sugar Wealth. Sugarcane growing began in Barbados in the early 1640s, when Dutch merchants came to help with sugar cane harvesting. By the mid-17th century, Barbados had actually become one of the most affluent colonies in the British Empire, earning the label "Little England." But all was not sweetness in the land of Sugar as we discover next:



Boiling Sugar: A Grueling Job

Sugar production in the 17th and 18th centuries was  a highly dangerous procedure. After harvesting and crushing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast iron kettles up until it turned into sugar. These pots, typically set up in a series called a"" train"" were heated up by blazing fires that enslaved Africans had to stir continually. The heat was extreme, and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers withstood long hours, frequently standing near the inferno, risking burns and fatigue. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not uncommon and could trigger severe, even deadly, injuries.




Now, the large cast iron boiling pots function as tips of this painful past. Scattered throughout gardens, museums, and historical sites in Barbados, they stand as silent witnesses to the lives they touched. These relics motivate us to assess the human suffering behind the sweetness that as soon as drove worldwide economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!


Abolitionist literature on The Threats of the Boiling House

Abolitionist literature, including James Ramsay's works, information the dreadful risks faced by enslaved employees in sugar plantations. The boiling house, with its precariously hot vats, was a lethal office where fatigue and severe heat caused terrible mishaps.

{
The Bitter Side of Sweet |The Hidden Side of Sugar: |Sweet Taste Forged in Fire: The Sugar-Boiling Legacy |
Molten Memories: The Iron Kettles of Sugar's Past |

Barbados Sugar-Boiling Kettles