Barbados Sugar-Boiling Kettles
Fatal Molten Memories: The Iron Pots of Sugar's Past Barbados Sugar Wealth. Sugarcane growing began in Barbados in the early 1640s, when the Dutch presented crop. The island's rich soil and favourable environment made it the perfect location for sugar production. By the mid-17th century, Barbados had actually become one of the wealthiest nests in the British Empire, earning the nickname "Little England." But all was not sweetness in the land of Sugar as we discover next: Boiling Sugar: A Grueling Job Producing sugar in the 17th and 18th centuries was a perilous process. After collecting and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast iron kettles till it took shape as sugar. These pots, frequently organized in a series called a"" train"" were heated by blazing fires that enslaved Africans had to stoke continually. The heat was suffocating, the flames unforgiving and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers sustained long hours, of...