Barbados – Luxury becomes common

Barbados – Luxury becomes common

By Mads Jørgensen

Colonial British Chronicles

Barbados was the first successful British tropical agricultural export colony. The large amount of high quality Virginian tobacco gained quick profits for our kingdom. In few years, the great harvest of tobacco and sugar made the European market prices drop, and the former luxuries of sugar and tobacco is now enjoyable for the most people, thanks to the British Kingdom.

14. may 1625, John Powell captained the first British ship to arrive in Barbados, and less than two years later, his little brother came with the first settlement, consistent of 80 settlers. All this was funded by the great merchant Sir William Courten. It did not take long before the British settlement grew; both English and Irish manpower came to Barbados to help the sugar and tobacco harvest. However, the price for having British people to work in the field was too high, so there was only one thing to do. There was only one right thing to do; import slaves from Africa.

The British-owned black slaves in the sugar fields of Barbados year 1640.

In the next fifty years, the population grew from around 1800 to around 80.000 people; around 66% of them were black slaves. Not only the British economy rose, most of Europe got wealthier because of the low sugar- and tobacco prices, thanks to the British Kingdom, all of Europe could now enjoy the former luxuries of sugar and tobacco.