Barbados Molten Memories

The Dire Side of Sugar: A History in Iron





Barbados Sugar Economy: A Tragic Exploitation. The beginning of the "plantation system" transformed the island's economy. Large estates owned by wealthy planters controlled the landscape, with oppressed Africans providing the labour required to sustain the demanding process of planting, harvesting, and processing sugarcane. This system generated tremendous wealth for the colony and strengthened its location as a key player in the Atlantic trade. But African slaves toiled in perilous conditions, and many died in the infamous Boiling room, as you will see next:



Boiling Sugar: A Lealthal Job

Making sugar in the days of colonial slavery was  a highly dangerous process. After collecting and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast iron kettles till it took shape as sugar. These pots, typically set up in a series called a"" train"" were warmed by blazing fires that workers had to stoke constantly. The heat was suffocating, and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers endured long hours, often standing near to the inferno, risking burns and fatigue. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not unusual and might trigger extreme, even deadly, injuries.




Now, the big cast iron boiling pots act as tips of this painful past. Spread throughout gardens, museums, and archaeological sites in Barbados, they stand as silent witnesses to the lives they touched. These relics motivate us to review the human suffering behind the sweet taste that as soon as drove global economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!


Abolitionist Expose the Perils of Sugar Plantations

James Ramsay and other abolitionists accentuated the gruesome conditions in Caribbean sugar plantations. The boiling home, filled with open barrels of scalding sugar, was a site of suffering, injury, and even death for enslaved workers.


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The Iron Heart of Barbados' Sugar