The Deadly Labor of Sugar

Boiling Down Sweetness


In 18th-century Barbados, sugar production counted on cast-iron syrup kettles, a method later embraced in the American South. Sugarcane was crushed using wind and animal-powered mills. The extracted juice was heated up, clarified, and evaporated in a series of cast-iron kettles of decreasing size to produce crystallized sugar.

The Sweet Land: Barbados Sugar Economy. Barbados, frequently 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 worldwide economy during the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet, the sweet success of sugar was built on a structure of shackled labour, a fact that casts a shadow over its legacy.





The Boiling Process: A Lealthal Job

Sugar production in the days of colonial slavery was  an unforgiving process. After gathering and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in huge cast iron kettles up until it turned into sugar. These pots, often set up in a series called a"" train"" were heated up by blazing fires that enslaved Africans had to stir constantly. The heat was suffocating, the flames unforgiving and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers endured long hours, often standing near to the inferno, risking burns and exhaustion. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not unusual and could trigger serious, even deadly, injuries.

Living in Constant Peril

The dangers were ever present for the enslaved workers tasked with tending these kettles. They laboured in intense heat, inhaling smoke and fumes from the boiling sugar and burning fuel. The work demanded intense physical effort and precision; a minute of negligence could cause mishaps. In spite of these challenges, shackled Africans brought exceptional skill and resourcefulness to the process, ensuring the quality of the final product. This item fueled economies far beyond Barbados" coasts.


Now, the large cast iron boiling pots work as tips of this agonizing past. Scattered throughout gardens, museums, and historical 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 Voices Concure on the Deadly Fate of Boiling Sugar

Accounts, such as James Ramsay's works, clarify the gruesome dangers shackled staff members dealt with in Caribbean sugar plantations. The boiling home, with its open barrels of scalding sugar, was a website of inconceivable suffering -- one of many horrors of plantation life.


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The Bitter Side of Sweet |The Fatal Side of Sugar: A History in Iron |Sweet Taste Forged in Fire: The Sugar-Boiling Legacy |
Molten Memories: The Iron Kettles of Sugar |

The Bitter Cauldron