Barbados Sugar’s Unseen History
The Bitter Side of Sweet In 18th-century Barbados, sugar production required the use of cast-iron syrup kettles, an approach later embraced in the American South. Sugarcane was crushed using wind and animal-powered mills. The drawn out juice was heated, clarified, and evaporated in a series of pots of reducing size to create crystallized sugar. Sugar in Barbados. Sugarcane growing began in Barbados in the early 1640s, when Dutch merchants presented sugar production. By the mid-17th century, Barbados had 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: Boiling Sugar: A Lealthal Task Making sugar in the days of colonial slavery was a perilous process. After gathering and crushing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast iron kettles up until it turned into sugar. These pots, typically organized in a series called a"" train"" were...