Barbados Molten Memories

Boiling Sugar: The Bitter Side of Sweet

In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar was made in cast-iron syrup kettles, a method later on embraced in the American South. Sugarcane was squashed utilizing wind and animal-powered mills. The drawn out juice was boiled, clarified, and vaporized in a series of pots of reducing size to produce crystallized sugar.

Sugar in Barbados. Sugarcane cultivation started in Barbados in the early 1640s, when the Dutch came to help with sugar production. By the mid-17th century, Barbados had actually turned into one of the wealthiest nests in the British Empire, earning the label "Little England." But all was not sweetness in the land of Sugar as we discover next:

The Hidden Dangers Behind Sugar

In the glare of Barbados' sun-soaked coasts and lively greenery lies a darker tale of durability and challenge-- the hazardous labour behind its once-thriving sugar economy. Central to this story is the big cast iron boiling pots, necessary tools in the sugar production process, however also harrowing symbols of the gruelling conditions dealt with by enslaved Africans.

The Boiling Process: A Lealthal Job

Making sugar in the 17th and 18th centuries was  a highly dangerous process. After harvesting and crushing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in enormous cast iron kettles up until it took shape as sugar. These pots, frequently set up in a series called a"" train"" were warmed by blazing fires that enslaved Africans had to stir continually. The heat was extreme, the flames unforgiving and the work unrelenting. Enslaved employees withstood long hours, frequently standing near to the inferno, running the risk of burns and fatigue. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not unusual and might cause severe, even fatal, injuries.




Today, the large cast iron boiling pots serve as reminders of this unpleasant past. Spread throughout gardens, museums, and archaeological sites in Barbados, they stand as quiet witnesses to the lives they touched. These relics motivate us to assess the human suffering behind the sweetness that when drove international economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!


 Abolitionist Reveal The Hotrrors of Boiling Sugar
 
Abolitionist works, consisting of James Ramsay's works, expose the extreme risks enslaved workers handled in Caribbean sugar plantations. The boiling house, with its big open vats of scalding sugar, became an area of unthinkable suffering and fatal accidents.


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Boiling Down Sweetness