The Iron Kettles of Sugar

Boiling Down Sugar


In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar production relied on 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 warmed, clarified, and evaporated in a series of kettles of reducing size to create crystallized sugar.

The Rise of Sugar in Barbados. Sugarcane growing began in Barbados in the early 1640s, when Dutch merchants introduced crop. By the mid-17th century, Barbados had actually become one of the most affluent 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 Grueling Task

Sugar production in the days of colonial slavery was  a highly dangerous process. After collecting and crushing the sugarcane, its juice was boiled in massive cast iron kettles till it turned into sugar. These pots, typically arranged 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 endured long hours, typically standing close to the inferno, running the risk of burns and exhaustion. Splashes of the boiling liquid were not uncommon and might cause serious, even deadly, injuries.


The Human Cost of Sweetness

The sugar market's success came at a serious human cost. Enslaved workers lived under brutal conditions, subjected to physical penalty, bad nutrition, and relentless workloads. Yet, they showed remarkable strength. Lots of found methods to maintain their cultural heritage, passing down songs, stories, and skills that sustained their neighbourhoods even in the face of unthinkable hardship.

Today, the big cast iron boiling pots function as pointers of this agonizing past. Spread throughout gardens, museums, and archaeological sites in Barbados, they stand as quiet witnesses to the lives they touched. These antiques motivate us to assess the human suffering behind the sweetness that when drove global economies.


HISTORICAL RECORDS!

Abolitionist Voices Vouch for the Deadly Fate of Boiling Sugar

Accounts, such as James Ramsay's works, shed light on the gruesome threats oppressed workers faced in Caribbean sugar plantations. The boiling places, with its open barrels of scalding sugar, was a site of inconceivable suffering -- among numerous horrors of plantation life.


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The Iron Kettles of Sugar