Ligon's True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados is the most significant book-length English text written about the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. [It] allows one to see the contested process behind the making of the Caribbean sugar/African slavery complex. Kupperman is one of the leading scholars of the early modern Atlantic world. . . . I cannot think of any scholar better prepared to write an Introduction that places Ligon, his text, and Barbados in an Atlantic historical context. The Introduction is quite thorough, readable, and accurate; the notes [are] exemplary! --Susan Parrish, University of Michigan Read more

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy. Read more

Geraldine Lane has drawn on her experience as a family history researcher in Barbados to compile this unique, comprehensive guide to Barbados genealogy. Family records held in Barbados (a British colony from 1637 to 1966) are excellent but are not always easy to locate or understand. But no matter the level of difficulty, "Tracing Ancestors in Barbados" will guide both novice and experienced researchers through the many types of records and published sources that document the lives of the people of Barbados. Read more

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Did you know that Barbados is the only Caribbean island with a coral reef on its west coast, making it a fantastic spot for snorkeling and diving adventures? The vibrant marine life and clear waters offer a breathtaking underwater experience.If this topic interests you and your little one then get ready for some fun and giggles.It is hard to find the time to teach your child about the world around them. Luckily, in 50 Facts About Barbados, we've made it easy. Our book contains a diverse selection of the most interesting facts about Barbados that will provide your child with hours of bonding and exploring.What you will find in our book:High-quality illustrationsInteresting Facts about BarbadosThis book also provides travel tips that are useful for your trip, and you will learn all about that country.Perfect for homeschooling, language development and for school holidaysSo what are you waiting for? Get your little kid a copy today! Read more

The idea that sugar, plantations, slavery, and capitalism were all present at the birth of the Atlantic world has long dominated scholarly thinking. In nine original essays by a multinational group of top scholars, Tropical Babylons re-evaluates this so-called "sugar revolution." The most comprehensive comparative study to date of early Atlantic sugar economies, this collection presents a revisionist examination of the origins of society and economy in the Atlantic world.Focusing on areas colonized by Spain and Portugal (before the emergence of the Caribbean sugar colonies of England, France, and Holland), these essays show that despite reliance on common knowledge and technology, there were considerable variations in the way sugar was produced. With studies of Iberia, Madeira and the Canary Islands, Hispaniola, Cuba, Brazil, and Barbados, this volume demonstrates the similarities and differences between the plantation colonies, questions the very idea of a sugar revolution, and shows how the specific conditions in each colony influenced the way sugar was produced and the impact of that crop on the formation of "tropical Babylons--multiracial societies of great oppression.Contributors:Alejandro de la Fuente, University of PittsburghHerbert Klein, Columbia UniversityJohn J. McCusker, Trinity UniversityRussell R. Menard, University of MinnesotaWilliam D. Phillips Jr., University of MinnesotaGenaro Rodriguez Morel, Seville, SpainStuart B. Schwartz, Yale UniversityEddy Stols, Leuven University, BelgiumAlberto Vieira, Centro de Estudos Atlanticos, Madeira Read more

Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany. But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations. Read more

Highly acclaimed when it first appeared in 1990, this general history of Barbados traces the events and ideas that have shaped the collaborative experience of all the islands inhabitants. In this second edition, Hilary Beckles updates the text to reflect the considerable number of writings recently published on Barbados. He presents new insights and analyses key events in a lucid and provocative style which will appeal to all those who have an interest in the island's past and present. Using a vigorous approach, Hilary Beckles examines how the influences of the Amerindians, European colonisation, the sugar industry, the African slave trade, emancipation, the civil rights movement, independence in 1966 and nationalism have shaped contemporary Barbados. Read more

In The Black Carib Wars, Christopher Taylor offers the most thoroughly researched history of the struggle of the Garifuna people to preserve their freedom on the island of St. Vincent. Today, thousands of Garifuna people live in Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the United States, preserving their unique culture and speaking a language that directly descends from that spoken in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus. All trace their origins back to St. Vincent where their ancestors were native Carib Indians and shipwrecked or runaway West African slaves―hence the name by which they were known to French and British colonialists: Black Caribs. In the 1600s they encountered Europeans as adversaries and allies. But from the early 1700s, white people, particularly the French, began to settle on St. Vincent. The treaty of Paris in 1763 handed the island to the British who wanted the Black Caribs' land to grow sugar. Conflict was inevitable, and in a series of bloody wars punctuated by uneasy peace the Black Caribs took on the might of the British Empire. Over decades leaders such as Tourouya, Bigot, and Chatoyer organized the resistance of a society which had no central authority but united against the external threat. Finally, abandoned by their French allies, they were defeated, and the survivors deported to Central America in 1797. The Black Carib Wars draws on extensive research in Britain, France, and St. Vincent to offer a compelling narrative of the formative years of the Garifuna people. Read more

Imagining the Tropics is a history of the development of tourism in the Caribbean from the 1910s through the 1970s that focuses on the ways women’s labors of hospitality, writing, and advocacy built the industry and its ubiquitous imagery of tropical island relaxation, escape, and romance. By examining a range of sources, engaging an array of women protagonists, and looking broadly across multiple Caribbean island-states including Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, it seeks to understand how the region came to be sold as a romantic escape from the “troubles” of the modern world. By putting women at the center of Caribbean tourism history—as both its ambassadors and objects of desire—it seeks to explain some of the complicated contradictions that plague the business of pleasure but also to point toward ways of building alternative models to its present and past extractive realities. Read more

In the autumn of 1751, at the age of nineteen, George Washington sailed with his older half-brother Lawrence from Virginia to the Caribbean island of Barbados―the one and only time that the future Revolutionary War hero and president would leave the shores of continental North America. Lawrence had long been in poor health and hoped, in vain, that the island climate would prove restorative. The Washingtons landed in early November, and George spent seven weeks on Barbados, recording his impressions of everything from the exotic landscapes and local culture, to the cultivation of sugarcane and the particulars of plantation slavery, before bidding his brother adieu and embarking on the return sail to Virginia. The two sea voyages provided plenty of adventure, at times harrowing, and framed an island interlude that exposed young George to new cultures and new experiences―and also to smallpox. His exposure to the dread disease, and his resulting immunity, would prove fateful a quarter century later when the commander in chief of the ragtag American revolutionary forces blunted a threat more grave than British cannon by directing the immunization of his troops. Technological advances and fresh scholarship make this the most comprehensive and authoritative edition that has ever been--or likely will ever be--published. Read more

As Barbados celebrates 350 years of established parliamentary government, this concise and authoritative history makes a timely appearance, covering the period from the first human settlement by the Amerindians to the present day. Social, political, and economic themes run throughout the book, including detailed aspects of early English colonization, the emergence and eventual abolition of the slave trade, and the development and growth of the sugar industry. Professor Beckles emphasizes the struggles for social equality, civil rights, and material betterment, detailing their continuous flow through the island's history since 1627. Read more

In this remarkable exploration of the brutal course of Barbados’s history, Hilary McD. Beckles details the systematic barbarism of the British colonial project. Trade in enslaved Africans was not new in the Americas in the seventeenth century – the Portuguese and Spanish had commercialized chattel slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the 1500s – but in Barbados, the practice of slavery reached its apotheosis.Barbados was the birthplace of British slave society and the most ruthlessly colonized. The geography of Barbados was ideally suited to sugar plantations and there were enormous fortunes to be made for British royalty and ruling elites from sugar produced by an enslaved, “disposable” workforce, fortunes that secured Britain’s place as an imperial superpower. The inhumane legacy of plantation society has shaped modern Barbados and this history must be fully understood by the inheritors on both sides of the power dynamic before real change and reparatory justice can take place.A prequel to Beckles’s equally compelling Britain’s Black Debt, The First Black Slave Society: Britain’s “Barbarity Time” in Barbados, 1636–1876 is essential reading for anyone interested in Atlantic history, slavery and the plantation system, and modern race relations. Read more

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"Important and timely ... Paul Lashmar uses the story of the Drax family's history as enslavers in Barbados as a microcosm of Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade" Laura Trevelyan, journalist and author of A Very British Family"A family story straight out of Game of Thrones ... Old-school investigative reporting married with a fearless historian's eye for the truth. A brilliant book that anyone still trying to defend Britain's colonial history in the Caribbean will choke on" Alex Renton, author of Blood Legacy"A timely retelling of the story of how one Englishman led the introduction of sugar and racial slavery to the Caribbean, as well as an eye-opening exploration of how the vast resulting profits were consolidated and enjoyed by generations of his descendants" Matthew Parker, author of The Sugar Barons"This book is a must-read" Jon Lee Anderson, journalist, The New Yorker Spanning 400 years, Drax of Drax Hall is a story of a plantation owning dynasty that has never been told. It all started when James Drax, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627, founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously rich. Today, the bloodline is unbroken, and former Tory MP Richard Drax heads the family from his vast Charborough Estate in Dorset. With physical assets worth at least £150m--not to mention the 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados--he was the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons. Today, he remains a hero amongst traditionalists and culture warriors for his refusal to make any public reparations for his family's historical role in slavery.  Drax of Drax Hall lifts the lid on a grotesque period of the family's history. Through enclosure at home and enslavement abroad, their exploits expose the ugly realities of colonialism and empire--the legacies of which we have yet to confront. PAUL LASHMAR is an investigative journalist and Reader in Journalism at City St George's, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain's slave trade in 1999. Paul has been on the staff of The Observer, Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series and The Independent. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books and lives in Dorset. Read more

The Women of Rendezvous is a dramatic transatlantic story about five women who birthed children by the same prominent Barbados politician and enslaver. Two of the women were his wives, two he enslaved, and one was a servant in his household. All were determined to make their way in a world that vastly and differentially circumscribed their life choices. From a Barbados plantation to the center of England’s empire in London, Hester Tomkyns, Frances Knights, Susannah Mingo, Elizabeth Ashcroft, and Dorothy Spendlove built remarkable lives for themselves and their children in spite of, not because of, the man who linked them together.Mining seventeenth- and eighteenth-century court records, deeds, wills, church registers, and estate inventories, Jenny Shaw centers the experiences of the women and their children, intertwining the microlevel relationships of family and the macrolevel political machinations of empire to show how white supremacy and racism developed in England and the colonies. Shaw also explores England’s first slave society in North America, provides a glimpse into Black Britain long before the Windrush generation of the twentieth century, and demonstrates that England itself was a society with slaves in the early modern era. Read more

Beginning in the 1920s, Barbadians and other British West Indians began organizing politically in an international environment that was marked by a severe capitalist economic and financial crisis that intensified in the 1930s. The response in the British Caribbean during the 1930s was in the form of rebellions that demanded colonial reform. The ensuing struggles resulted in constitutional and political changes that led to decolonization and independence. In Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period, Hilbourne Watson examines the contradictory process through the lens of political economy and class analysis, informed by an internationalist historical perspective that centres the concerns and interests of the working class. Britain freed the colonies in ways that reflected its own subordination to US hegemony under the rubric of the Cold War, which served as the geopolitical strategy for liberal internationalism. Watson’s analysis concentrates on the roles played by the labour movement, political parties, capitalist interests, and working-class and other popular organizations in Barbados and the British Caribbean, with support from Caribbean-American groups in New York that forged alliances with those black American organizations which saw their freedom struggles in an international context. Practically all the decolonizing (nationalist) elites in Barbados and other British Caribbean territories endorsed a British and American prescription for decolonization and self-government based on territorial primacy and at the expense of a strong West Indian federation that prioritized the working class. This move sidelined the working class and its interests also set back the struggle for self-determination, liberty and sovereignty. Watson situates the role Errol Barrow played in the transformation of Barbados in the wider Caribbean and international context. His study draws on archival records from Britain and Barbados, interviews and other sources, and he pays close attention to how the racialization of social life around nature, culture, history, the state, class, gender, politics, poverty and other factors conditioned the colonial experience. Read more

There were 26—not 13—British colonies in America in 1776. Of these, the six colonies in the Caribbean—Jamaica, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, Grenada and Tobago, St. Vincent; and Dominica—were among the wealthiest. These island colonies were closely related to the mainland by social ties and tightly connected by trade. In a period when most British colonists in North America lived less than 200 miles inland and the major cities were all situated along the coast, the ocean often acted as a highway between islands and mainland rather than a barrier.The plantation system of the islands was so similar to that of the southern mainland colonies that these regions had more in common with each other, some historians argue, than either had with New England. Political developments in all the colonies moved along parallel tracks, with elected assemblies in the Caribbean, like their mainland counterparts, seeking to increase their authority at the expense of colonial executives. Yet when revolution came, the majority of the white island colonists did not side with their compatriots on the mainland.A major contribution to the history of the American Revolution, An Empire Divided traces a split in the politics of the mainland and island colonies after the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765-66, when the colonists on the islands chose not to emulate the resistance of the patriots on the mainland. Once war came, it was increasingly unpopular in the British Caribbean; nonetheless, the white colonists cooperated with the British in defense of their islands. O'Shaughnessy decisively refutes the widespread belief that there was broad backing among the Caribbean colonists for the American Revolution and deftly reconstructs the history of how the island colonies followed an increasingly divergent course from the former colonies to the north. Read more

The Barbados Tenantries Programme provides an example of what can take place when the state elects to intervene in low-income housing. This work offers an empirical study of the plantation tenantries since the upgrading programme began in the 1980s, examining different aspects of 150 tenantries. Read more