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 wa...