The history of Barbados and other things

This is an amazingly beautiful flickr set of images from Barbados, including the one above.

From The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in Americas database.

Engraving is from 1796.

Description from that site:

Engraving of Pringle at the age of about 36 sitting in front of her hotel/tavern/house of prostitution in Bridgetown, capital of Barbados; man on left has elephantiasis. Rachel Pringle was born a slave around 1753, the daughter of an African woman and her master, a Scottish schoolmaster. In the 1770s, she became the first free woman of color to own a hotel-tavern (and house of prostitution) in Barbados; when she died in 1792, at the age of 38, she was a relatively wealthy woman. See Jerome S. Handler, Joseph Rachell and Rachael Pringle-Polgreen: Petty Entrepreneurs, in D.G. Sweet and G. B. Nash, eds., Struggle and Survival in Colonial America (Univ. of California Press, 1981), pp. 376-391. Slide of engraving, courtesy of the late Neville Connell, Director of the Barbados Museum.)

I saw this image of Pringle multiple times in the few weeks I was in Barbados. I love it.

“The Queen’s Pine” (aka, a pineapple) from Ligon’s 1657, The True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados.

Morgan Lewis Windmill, St. Andrew, Barbados.

From wikipedia (that great source of all knowledge):

[It] is the last sugar windmill to operate in Barbados. The mill stopped operating in 1947. In 1962 the mill was given to the Barbados National Trust by its owner Egbert L. Bannister for preservation as a museum.

The site was listed in the 1996 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. Restoration began by the Barbados National Trust during the following summer. In 1997, financial support was provided by American Express for emergency repairs. The mill was dismantled for restoration, and reopened in 1999.

With all its original working parts having been preserved intact, the sails were able to turn again after the project was completed, and cane was ground again after more than half a century.

It is a unique historic and architectural monument - it is one of the only two working sugar windmills in the world today. (Betty’s Hope, in Antigua, was refurbished and restored some years ago and is also functional.)

During the ‘crop’ season, February through July, its sails are put in place and it operates one Sunday in each month, grinding cane and providing cane juice. Around the interior of the mill wall is a museum of sugar mill and plantation artefacts, and an exhibition of old photographs. Visitors can climb to the top of the mill.

Image is from the map in Richard Ligon’s 1657 work, The True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados.

I am fascinated at the idea of camels living and working in Barbados.

Image from Nathaniel Crouch’s 1682(?) work, The English empire in America. Or, A view of the dominions of the crown of England in the West Indies…

From John Carter Brown Library, the description of this image:

Map of the Caribbean Sea with inset of Jamaica. Cartographic element includes compass rose. Includes manatee with its calf and many kinds of fish such as swordfish, flying fish, and “sea unicorn” [narwhal?]. Also includes ships.

Narwhals, in case you are interested, are:

a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic

So, whatever this sea-unicorn is, it is probably not a narwhal.

But if you’d like to see a delightful animated video about narwhals (with a clever song and everything), click here.  Warning: the song may get stuck in your head and you may find that you need to watch this video on a loop for a while.

From a 1695 map of Barbados.

This is the key. It reads:

An explanation of the Marks

A Windmill

A Watermill

A Cattel-mill

All which are imployed in the grinding of Sugar Canes

Mile marker from Barbados. 

It reads: “Parish of St. Philip. X Miles to Bridgetown. C. Fletcher London.”

Upon one of their Festivals when a great many of the Negro Musicians were gathered together, I desired Mr. Baptiste, the best Musician there to take the Words they sung and set them to Musick, which follows.

You must clap Hands when the Base is plaid, and cry, Alla, Alla.

It then has the word “Angola.”  Under the notes are written the words: “Ho-baognion, Ho-baognion, Ho-ba, Ho-ba, Ognion, Ognion.”  Then above the last line on the left side the word “Papa.”

At the top of the right side it says “Koromanti”, which was a famous group of slaves from the Gold Coast in Africa.  They were said to be the biggest, strongest, and most productive slaves but also the ones most likely to rebel.  There are plenty of Koromanti rebellions in Jamaica’s history, including Tackey’s revolt. 

There are, finally, some words under music on the right side that read:

Meri Bonbo mich langa meri wa langa.

From the introduction to volume 1 of Sloane’s 1707 Voyage to the Island of Jamaica.