A true & exact history of the island of Barbados

by Richard Ligon

The Locust is a tree of such a growth, both for length and bignesse, as may serve for beams in a very large room: I have seen many of them, whose straight bodies are above fifty foot high, the diameter of the stem or body, three foot and halfe. The timber of this tree is a hard close substance, heavie, but firme, and not apt to bend, somewhat hard for tooles to cut; brittle, but lasting. Mastik, not altogether so large as he, but of a tougher substance, and not accounted so brittle. The Bully-tree wants something of the largnesse of these, but in his other qualities goes beyond either; for, he is full out as lasting, and as strong, but not so heavie, nor so hard for tooles to work. The Redwood and prickled yellow wood, good for posts or beams, and are lighter then the Locust; both are accounted very lasting, and good for building. The Cedar is, without controul, the best of all, but by reason it works smoth, and looks beautifull, we use it most in Wainscot, Tables, and Stooles. Other timber we have, as the Iron-wood, and another sort, which are excellent good to endure wet and drie; and of those we make Shingles, which being such a kinde of wood, as will not warpe nor rive, are the best coverings for a house that can be, full out as good as Tiles, and lie lighter upon the Rafters.

Stone fit for Building.

We have two sorts of Stone, and either will serve indifferently well in building: The one we finde on sides of small Hills, and it lies as ours do in England, in Quarries; but they are very small, rough, and ill shaped, some of them porous, like Honey combes; but being burnt, they make excellent Lyme, the whitest and firmest when ’tis drie, that I have seen; and by the help of this, we make the better shift with our ill shap’t stone; for this lime bindes it fast together, and keeps it firm to endure the weather. Other Stone we have, which we find in great Rocks, and massie pieces in the ground; but so soft, as with your finger you may bore a hole into it; and this softness gives us the means of cutting it with two handed sawes, which being hard, we could not so easily do, and the easinesse causes the expedition; for by that, we the more speedily fit it for our walls, taking a just bredth of the walls, and cutting it accordingly; so that we need very little hewing. This stone, as we cutt it in the quarry, is no harder then ordinary morter, but being set out in the weather, by pieces as we cut it, growes indifferently hard, and is able to beare all the weight that lyes on it, and the longer it lies, the harder it growes. Many essayes we made, whilst I was there, for the making and burning of bricks, but never could attaine to the perfection of it; and the reason was, the over fatnesse of the clay, which would alwaies crackle and break, when it felt the great heat of the fire in the Clampe; and by no meanes could we find the true temper of it, though we made often trialls. There was an ingenious Jew upon the Iland, whose name was Solomon, that undertook to teach the making of it; yet for all that, when it came to the touch his wisedome failed, and we were deceived in our expectation, I doubt not but there is a way of tempering, to make it farre better then ours in England; for the pots which we finde in the Iland, wherein the Indians boyl’d their Porke, were of the same kind of Clay, and they were the best and finest temper’d ware of earth that ever I saw. If we could find the true temper of it, a great advantage might be made to the Iland; for the ayre being moyst, the stones often sweat, and by their moysture rot the timbers they touch, which to prevent we cover the ends of our beams and girders with boards, pitcht on both sides, but the walls being made of bricks, or but lin’d with brick, would be much the wholesomer; and besides keep our wainescot from rotting. Hangings we dare not use, for being spoyld by Ants, and eaten by the Cockroaches, and Rats, yet some of the planters that meant to handsome their houses, were minded to send for gilt leather, and hang their rooms with that, which they were more then perswaded those vermine would not eate; and in that resolution I left them.

Carpenters, and Masons, were newly come upon the Iland, and some of these very great Masters in their Art: and such as could draw a plot, and pursue the designe they framed with great diligence, and beautifie the tops of their doores, windowes, and Chimney peeces, very pretily; but not many of those nor is it needfull that there should be many, for though the Planters talke of building houses, and wish them up, yet when they weigh the want of those handes in their sugar worke, that must be imployed in their building, they fall backe, and put on their considering caps. I drew out at least twenty plots when I came first into the Ilands which they all lik’t well inough, and yet but two of them us’d, one by Captaine Midleton, and one by Captaine Standfast, and those were the two best houses, I left finisht in the Iland when I came away. Cellars I would not make under ground, unlesse the house be set on the side of a Hill; for though the ayre be moyst above, yet I found it by experience much moyster under ground; so that no moyst thing can be set there, but it will in a very short time grow mouldy, and rotten; and if for coolnesse you think to keep any raw flesh, it will much sooner taint there, then being hung up in a garret, where the Sun continually shines upon it. Nay the pipe-staves hoops, and heads of barrels, and hogsheads, will grow mouldy and rotten: Pavements and foundations of bricks would much help this with glasse windowes, to keep out the ayre.

If I were to build a house for my selfe in that place, I would have a third part of my building to be of an East and West line, and the other two thirds to crosse that, at the West end: in a North and South line, and this latter to be a story higher than that of the East and West line, so that at four a clocke in the afternoone, the higher buildings will begin to shade the other, and so afford more and more shade to my East and West building till night; and not only to the house, but to all the walks that I make on either side that building, and then I would raise my foundation of that part of my house wherein my best roomes were three foot above ground; leaving it hollow underneath for Ventiducts, which I would have come into every room in the house, and by that means you shall feele the cool breese all the day, & in the evening, when they slacken, a coole shade from my North & South building, both which are great refreshings, in hot Countryes: and according to this Modell, I drew many plots, of severall sises and Contrivances, but they did not or would not understand them: at last I grew wearie of casting stones against the wind, and so gave over.

The number and nature of the inhabitants.

It were somewhat difficult, to give you an exact account, of the number of persons upon the Iland; there being such store of shipping that brings passengers dayly to the place, but it has been conjectur’d, by those that are long acquainted, and best seen in the knowledge of the Iland, that there are not lesse then 50 thousand soules, besides Negroes; and some of them who began upon small fortunes, are now risen to very great and vast estates.

The Iland is divided into three sorts of men, viz. Masters, Servants, and slaves. The slaves and their posterity, being subject to their Masters for ever, are kept and preserv’d with greater care then the servants, who are theirs but for five yeers, according to the law of the Iland. So that for the time, the servants have the worser lives, for they are put to very hard labour, ill lodging, and their dyet very sleight. When we came first on the Iland, some Planters themselves did not eate bone meat, above twice a weeke: the rest of the seven dayes, Potatoes, Loblolly, and Bonavist. But the servants no bone meat at all unlesse an Oxe dyed: and then they were feasted, as long as that lasted, And till they had planted good store of Plantines, the Negroes were fed with this kind of food; but most of it Bonavist, and Loblolly, with some eares of Mayes toasted, which food (especially Loblolly,) gave them much discontent: But when they had Plantines enough to serve them, they were heard no more to complaine; for ’tis a food they take great delight in, and their manner of dressing and eating it, is this: ’tis gathered for them (somewhat before it be ripe, for so they desire to have it,) upon Saturday, by the keeper of the Plantine grove; who is an able Negro, and knowes well the number of those that are to be fed with this fruite; and as he gathers, layes them all together, till they fetch them away, which is about five a clock in the after noon, for that day they breake off worke sooner by an houre: partly for this purpose, and partly for that the fire in the furnaces is to be put out, and the Ingenio and the roomes made cleane; besides they are to wash, shave and trim themselves against Sunday. But ’tis a lovely sight to see a hundred handsome Negroes, men and women, with every one a grasse-green bunch of these fruits on their heads, every bunch twice as big as their heads, all comming in a train one after another, the black and green so well becomming one another. Having brought this fruit home to their own houses, and pilling off the skin of so much as they will use, they boyl it in water, making it into balls, and so they eat it. One bunch a week is a Negres allowance. To this, no bread nor drink, but water. Their lodging at night a board, with nothing under, nor any thing a top of them. They are happy people, whom so little contents. Very good servants, if they be not spoyled by the English. But more of them hereafter.

As for the usage of the Servants, it is much as the Master is, mercifull or cruell; Those that are mercifull, treat their Servants well, both in their meat, drink, and lodging, and give them such work, as is not unfit for Christians to do. But if the Masters be cruell, the Servants have very wearisome and miserable lives. Upon the arrivall of any ship, that brings servants to the Iland, the Planters go aboard; and having bought such of them as they like, send them with a guid to his Plantation; and being come, commands them instantly to make their Cabins, which they not knowing how to do, are to be advised by other of their servants, that are their seniors; but, if they be churlish, and will not shew them, or if materialls be wanting, to make them Cabins, then they are to lie on the ground that night. These Cabins are to be made of sticks, withs, and Plantine leaves, under some little shade that may keep the rain off; Their suppers being a few Potatoes for meat, and water or Mobbie for drink. The next day they are rung out with a Bell to work, at six a clock in the morning, with a severe Overseer to command them, till the Bell ring again, which is at eleven a clock; and then they return, and are set to dinner, either with a messe of Lob-lollie, Bonavist, or Potatoes. At one a clock, they are rung out again to the field, there to work till six, and then home again, to a supper of the same. And if it chance to rain, and wet them through, they have no shift, but must lie so all night. If they put off their cloths, the cold of the night will strike into them; and if they be not strong men, this ill lodging will put them into a sicknesse: if they complain, they are beaten by the Overseer; if they resist, their time is doubled. I have seen an Overseer beat a Servant with a cane about the head, till the blood has followed, for a fault that is not worth the speaking of; and yet he must have patience, or worse will follow. Truly, I have seen such cruelty there done to Servants, as I did not think one Christian could have done to another. But, as discreeter and better natur’d men have come to rule there, the servants lives have been much bettered; for now, most of the servants lie in Hamocks, and in warm rooms, and when they come in wet, have shift of shirts and drawers, which is all the cloths they were, and are fed with bone meat twice or thrice a week. Collonell Walrond seeing his servants when they came home, toyled with their labour, and wet through with their sweating, thought that shifting of their linnen not sufficient refreshing, nor warmth for their bodies, their pores being much opened by their sweating; and therefore resolved to send into England for rug Gownes, such as poor people wear in Hospitalls, that so when they had shifted themselves, they might put on those Gowns, and lie down and rest them in their Hamocks: For the Hamocks being but thin, and they having nothing on but shirts and drawers, when they awak’d out of their sleeps, they found themselves very cold; and a cold taken there, is harder to be recovered, than in England, by how much the body is infeebled by the great toyle, and the Sun’s heat, which cannot but very much exhaust the spirits of bodies unaccustomed to it. But this care and charity of Collonell Walrond’s, lost him nothing in the conclusion; for, he got such love of his servants, as they thought all too little they could do for him; and the love of the servants there, is of much concernment to the Masters, not only in their diligent and painfull labour, but in fore seeing and preventing mischiefes that often happen, by the carelessnesse and slothfulnesse of retchlesse servants; sometimes by laying fire so negligently, as whole lands of Canes and Houses too, are burnt down and consumed, to the utter ruine and undoing of their Masters: For, the materialls there being all combustible, and apt to take fire, a little oversight, as the fire of a Tobacco-pipe, being knockt out against a drie stump of a tree, has set it on fire, and the wind fanning that fire, if a land of Canes be but neer, and they once take fire, all that are down the winde will be burnt up. Water there is none to quench it, or if it were, a hundred Negres with buckets were not able to do it; so violent and spreading a fire this is, and such a noise it makes, as if two Armies, with a thousand shot of either side, were continually giving fire, every knot of every Cane, giving as great a report as a Pistoll. So that there is no way to stop the going on of this flame, but by cutting down and removing all the Canes that grow before it, for the breadth of twenty or thirty foot down the winde, and there the Negres to stand and beat out the fire, as it creeps upon the ground, where the Canes are cut down. And I have seen some Negres so earnest to stop this fire, as with their naked feet to tread, and with their naked bodies to tumble, and roll upon it; so little they regard their own smart or safety, in respect of their Masters benefit. The year before I came away, there were two eminent Planters in the Iland, that with such an accident as this, lost at least 10000 l. sterling, in the value of the Canes that were burnt; the one, Mr. James Holduppe, the other, Mr. Constantine Silvester: And the latter had not only his Canes, but his house burnt down to the ground. This, and much more mischiefe has been done, by the negligence and wilfulnesse of servants. And yet some cruell Masters will provoke their Servants so, by extream ill usage, and often and cruell beating them, as they grow desperate, and so joyne together to revenge themselves upon them.

A little before I came from thence, there was such a combination amongst them, as the like was never seen there before. Their sufferings being grown to a great height, & their daily complainings to one another (of the intolerable burdens they labour’d under) being spread throughout the Iland; at the last, some amongst them, whose spirits were not able to endure such slavery, resolved to break through it, or die in the act; and so conspired with some others of their acquaintance, whose sufferings were equall, if not above theirs; and their spirits no way inferiour, resolved to draw as many of the discontented party into this plot, as possibly they could; and those of this perswasion, were the greatest numbers of servants in the Iland. So that a day was appointed to fall upon their Masters, and cut all their throats, and by that means, to make themselves not only freemen, but Masters of the Iland. And so closely was this plot carried, as no discovery was made, till the day before they were to put it in act: And then one of them, either by the failing of his courage, or some new obligation from the love of his Master, revealed this long plotted conspiracy; and so by this timely advertisment, the Masters were saved: Justice Hethersall (whose servant this was) sending Letters to all his friends, and they to theirs, and so one to another, till they were all secured; and, by examination, found out the greatest part of them; whereof eighteen of the principall men in the conspiracy, and they the first leaders and contrivers of the plot, were put to death, for example to the rest. And the reason why they made examples of so many, was, they found these so haughty in their resolutions, and so incorrigible, as they were like enough to become actors in a second plot; and so they thought good to secure them; and for the rest, to have a speciall eye over them.