Barbados Sugar’s Unseen History
Boiling Down Sweetness: The Iron Heart of Barbados' Sugar
In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar was made in cast-iron syrup kettles, an approach later on embraced in the American South. Sugarcane was crushed using wind and animal-powered mills. The drawn out juice was warmed, clarified, and evaporated in a series of cast-iron pots of reducing size to create crystallized sugar.
The Bitter Sweet Harvest: Barbados Sugar Production. Barbados, typically called the "Gem of the Caribbean," owes much of its historical prominence to one commodity: sugar. This golden crop transformed the island from a small colonial station into a powerhouse of the global economy during the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet, the sweet success of sugar was built on a structure of enslaved labour, a fact that casts a shadow over its tradition.
Boiling Sugar: A Lealthal Job
Making sugar in the 17th and 18th centuries was an unforgiving procedure. After collecting and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in huge cast iron kettles up until it crystallized into sugar. These pots, frequently organized in a series called a"" train"" were heated by blazing fires that enslaved Africans needed to stir continuously. The heat was suffocating, , and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers sustained long hours, typically standing close to the inferno, running the risk of burns and exhaustion. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not unusual and could trigger serious, even fatal, injuries.
Today, the large cast iron boiling pots points out this agonizing past. Spread across gardens, museums, and archaeological 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 when drove global economies.
HISTORICAL RECORDS!
Abolitionist literature on The Risks of the Boiling Trains
Abolitionist literature, consisting of James Ramsay's works, information the dreadful dangers dealt with by enslaved workers in sugar plantations. The boiling home, with its precariously hot barrels, was a fatal office where fatigue and severe heat resulted in terrible mishaps.
The Dark Side of Sugar: A History in Iron - Visit the Blog for Details
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