Boiling Down Sweetness
Boiling Sugar: The Bitter Side of Sweet In 18th-century Barbados, cane sugar was made in cast-iron syrup kettles, a method later on embraced in the American South. Sugarcane was squashed utilizing wind and animal-powered mills. The drawn out juice was heated up, clarified, and vaporized in a series of cast-iron kettles of decreasing size to produce crystallized sugar. Barbados Sugar Economy: A Tragic Success. The introduction of the "plantation system" reinvented the island's economy. Large estates owned by rich planters controlled the landscape, with enslaved Africans supplying the labour needed to sustain the demanding process of planting, harvesting, and processing sugarcane. This system produced tremendous 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...