The Kettles of a Bitter Past

The Dire Side of Sugar: A History in Iron

In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar was made in cast-iron syrup kettles, a method later on adopted in the American South. Sugarcane was crushed using wind and animal-powered mills. The extracted juice was heated, clarified, and vaporized in a series of pots of reducing size to make crystallized sugar.



Barbados Sugar Economy: A Tragic Exploitation. The start of the "plantation system" reinvented the island's economy. Large estates owned by wealthy planters controlled the landscape, with enslaved Africans offering the labour needed to sustain the requiring procedure of planting, harvesting, and processing sugarcane. This system produced enormous wealth for the colony and strengthened its place 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

Producing sugar in the days of colonial slavery was  a perilous process. After collecting and squashing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in huge cast iron kettles until it took shape as sugar. These pots, frequently arranged in a series called a"" train"" were heated by blazing fires that workers needed to stoke continually. The heat was suffocating, , and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers endured long hours, frequently standing close to the inferno, risking burns and fatigue. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not uncommon and could trigger serious, even deadly, injuries.




Now, the big cast iron boiling pots points out this agonizing past. Scattered across gardens, museums, and historical sites in Barbados, they stand as silent witnesses to the lives they touched. These relics encourage us to review the human suffering behind the sweetness that when drove worldwide economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!


 Abolitionist Reveal Sugar Plantation Horrors
 
Abolitionist works, consisting of James Ramsay's works, expose the brutal risks oppressed staff members faced in Caribbean sugar plantations. The boiling home, with its huge open barrels of scalding sugar, became a place of unthinkable suffering and fatal accidents.


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The Bitter Side of Sweet |The Dark Side of Sugar: |Sweetness Forged in Fire |
Molten Memories: The Iron Pots of Sugar |

Barbados Molten Memories