The Bitter Cauldron

Tragic Molten Memories: The Iron Pots of Sugar





Barbados Sugar Economy: A Bitter Success. The introduction of the "plantation system" changed the island's economy. Big estates owned by wealthy planters dominated the landscape, with shackled Africans providing the labour required to sustain the demanding process of planting, harvesting, and processing sugarcane. This system created immense wealth for the nest 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:



The Boiling Process: A Lealthal Job

Producing sugar in the 17th and 18th centuries was  a highly dangerous process. After gathering and crushing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in huge cast iron kettles until it turned into sugar. These pots, often organized in a series called a"" train"" were heated up by blazing fires that enslaved Africans had to stoke continually. The heat was suffocating, , and the work unrelenting. Enslaved workers sustained long hours, frequently standing close to the inferno, risking burns and exhaustion. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not unusual and might cause serious, even deadly, injuries.




Now, the large cast iron boiling pots points out this uncomfortable past. Spread throughout gardens, museums, and archaeological sites in Barbados, they stand as silent witnesses to the lives they touched. These antiques encourage us to reflect on the human suffering behind the sweetness that once drove global economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!

Abolitionist Voices Attest to the Deadly Fate of Boiling Sugar

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


Sweet Taste Forged in Fire: The Sugar-Boiling Legacy - Click the link for Details

Boiling Down Sweetness