Life of an Enslaved Woman in Barbados

        An enslaved woman in Barbados had a very difficult life. Whether she was working as a domestic servant or a field hand, she worked hard in horrible conditions. The work would have consisted of long hours, back breaking labor, and long stretches away from her family, all the while with the knowledge that the slightest transgression, real or not, could result in excruciating punishments. Slavery was not easy for anyone but the woman had the added problems of being worked hard when she was pregnant, right up to the moment of labor, being separated from her children either by doing her own work or having them sold to another owner, and the possibility of sexual assault by men in positions of authority.

        As a domestic servant, a woman would constantly be under the thumb of their master or mistress but she would have a higher prestige among the other slaves. The day would start early when she got up to go milk the cows or get eggs from the chicken coop for her master’s breakfast. After cooking breakfast and feeding the family, she MIGHT have time to eat her own breakfast before having to clear the dishes from the table and washing them. If children were her responsibility, between milking the cow and fixing breakfast, she would have to help them get ready for the day; if nursing, she would feed the baby while she ate her own breakfast if not before then. After cleaning the breakfast dishes, she would start on doing the laundry for the family and cleaning the house: sweeping, mopping, dusting, and the like. Around midday, she would start fixing the families’ lunch. After clearing the table and doing those dishes, she would continue to do her chores which could include feeding the animals, killing an animal to feed the family that night, and changing bedding. All the while trying to incorporate into her daily routine anything her master or mistress wanted her to do, no matter how nonsensical it may have been. Any slight or perceived transgression would result in corporal punishment, often disproportionately out of sync with the misstep. As a domestic servant, she would be under greater danger of possible sexual assault from her master, his friends, or anyone else who came to the house. Although the domestic servant had a rough life, most of the enslaved women (and men) Barbados worked as field hands.

        As a field hand, the woman would have been held to the same set of standards as male field hands. She would have been expected to keep up the same pace and pull their own weight in their team. If she messed up, she would face the same punishment as the men, with no regard for her state, whether pregnant, old, or feeble. The sugar cane fields were particularly brutal. It was back breaking labor underneath the heat of the sun or in the pouring rain, whatever the weather was like.  When it was planting season, the work involved following the men, as they dug trenches, and dropping the shoots in. At harvest time, the work involved going into the sugar cane fields with shoots about five feet tall and razor sharp leaf-like structures that could tear their skin in moments. Some women were put in charge the children and were forced to work the kids in whatever way the master or overseer saw fit. If the woman worked in the processing part of the industry, the work was even more dangerous. Depending on the job, she faced the threat of maiming or loss of life, especially when she was working the long hours to get the sugar cane processed within forty-eight hours of harvesting. While the domestic servants might have been held a higher esteem by the field hands, the field hands had more autonomy from their masters. While they may see the master from time to time, the women in the field were not constantly under scrutiny. They were also not as vulnerable to sexual assault although they were still vulnerable to it from other men in positions of authority.

        The enslaved woman had a difficult life no matter if she worked in the house or the field. Both involved back breaking labor, long hours, the possibility of sexual assault, and the constant threat of corporal punishment. She also faced forced separation from her family which was especially difficult if she had children. The children were born into slavery and could be sold to another owner without the slightest thought of or consultation with the mother. There is no light that can be shed on the subject that would make the enslaved life tolerable or rosy. 

The Demography of Labor

        The sugar cane industry in Barbados took off in 1645 when the planters discovered it could be used for more than feeding livestock. They realized that it could be a “truly profitable staple” (Beckles, 21). The main source of labor used to maintain the sugar cane in the beginning was indentured servants but that changed to enslaved Africans near the end of the seventeenth century. The white European indentured servants were the preferred laborers because they were Christian and deemed morally superior. The amount of work done by the indentured servants was equal to that of enslaved Africans. The Scottish laborers were preferred over all other white Europeans and the Catholic Irish were seen as a last resort. These indentured servants were preferred because of a cost benefit analysis comparing them with enslaved Africans. England was seen as overcrowded and this was seen as the basis for the decline of social order. Therefore, the surplus of servants and laborers were encouraged to immigrate to the English colonies in the Caribbean; specifically Barbados before Jamaica became prominent. This allowed for the price of indentured servants to remain relatively low because of the subsidies offered by the English government. The price was dependent upon the sex, skills, and nationality of the servant but it was relatively uniform for men and women if two of the three traits were the same. The demand for the white servants was so great that the price was driven up. The government intervened and limited the price the intermediaries could charge. Unfortunately, England was soon deemed under populated and laws were enacted to prevent the immigration of servants to the Caribbean. Merchants were soon charged with kidnapping and coercion for enticing servants to immigrate to the Caribbean. The indentured servants were not treated as badly as the enslaved Africans. There was a time limit on their servitude which made it easier to mentally and physically survive their contract. The plantations owners treated them better because they were white Christian laborers. The enslaved Africans did not have it as easy.

Ashford Plantation, Barbados, 1830s-1840s

The white planter class believed that the Africans were more suited to working in the tropical climate than white, Christian laborers. Another reason that the planters preferred African workers is that they could never find an adequate supply of white European laborers. Once laws were enacted to prevent the immigration of indentured servants to the Caribbean, the African slaves became cheaper which drove up the profit the planters could potentially reap. The enslaved Africans were bought from rival chiefs who had captured or kidnapped them from the continent. At the end of the seventeenth century, the slave trade had been streamlined. The slave traders were more efficient, and arrived more regularly at the Caribbean ports. This allowed for a cheaper market for the planters to buy the enslaved Africans. The planters would then get the same amount of work that they did from the indentured servants for less expense. Another perk from using enslaved Africans is that there was no time limit on their servitude. This meant that the plantation owners’ labor costs were significantly lower. The plantation owners had racial prejudices that meant that they did not hold themselves responsible for treating the enslaved Africans very well. The planters were supported in their efforts at keeping the slaves subdued by militia regiments, imperial troops and navy (Beckles, 33). Special legal codes were also used to restrict slave movement and social behavior. The slaves were restricted from owning land which prevented their upward mobility. The enslaved Africans were treated as less than human and underwent inhuman punishments.

     The labor used to work the sugar cane fields were indentured servants and slaves who were bought and traded like commodities. There was a certain amount of kidnapping and coercion used on the indentured servants near the end of the seventeenth century due to the laws preventing their immigration to the Caribbean. The enslaved Africans were to a certain extent kidnapped from Africa or bought from the rival chiefs who captured them. However they got there, the treatment they underwent was radically different. The indentured servants got treated better because they were white Christians. The enslaved Africans were treated brutally because they were seen as heathens. Voluntary labor did not really play a part in the sugar cane industry in Barbados. 

Bibliography

Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (New York: Cambridge, 1990), 20-33.

“Ashford Plantation” via The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas.http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/details.php?categorynum=8&categoryName=Plantation%20Scenes,%20Slave%20Settlements%20and%20Houses&theRecord=42&recordCount=83

Classifications of Race in Barbados

      Barbados was unique in the way they classified people by race in comparison with the French and Spanish colonies but identical to the other British colonies. The British wanted everything to be black and white, literally. The British censuses only provided columns for the enslaved black people and the white people on the island. Nowhere in the census is there a column for people of mixed race, such as people with one white parent and one black parent. Another interesting facet of the Barbados censuses was that the free people of color were not counted in them either. They did not fit into either of the categories used so they were simply left out all together. Although this was by no means an inclusive process, it fit into the way the British wanted to see the world, in black and white.

1680 Census

        The example of John Peers illustrates this fact very well. John Peers was a prominent white planter on the island of Barbados in the seventeenth century. The church on the island had records of Peers baptizing six children by two different enslaved women. In the 1680 census, there is no mention of the women or the children unless they were counted under the black column. Another example is the Daily family. The Daily family was a free family of color in Barbados in the seventeenth century, roughly the same time period as the John Peers example. There are baptismal records from the 1670’s and early 1680’s. Again, the census taken in 1680 held no mention of the Daily family. The bureaucrats in England made occasional mentions of the people excluded from the censuses in their written reports but it was not nearly as detailed as the statistics kept for the white and the enslaved black populations of Barbados.

There was a small group of people of European and African descent on the island. This is verifiable through the baptismal records that were kept for the churches on the island. Beckles believes that the group remained small because the white women on the island anchored the white men on the island in the domestic sphere (Beckles, 42). The same phenomenon took place amongst the white and black population of the island. As the island was still being settled, the population was predominantly men. As time went on, the population of women, both white and black, increased as the island transformed from settlement to colony. The seventeenth century was a time of immense population growth in Barbados. In 1645, the population of Barbados consisted of 11,000 white people and 5,000 enslaved Africans. In 1660, the population was evenly split with 20,000 white people and 20,000 enslaved Africans. By 1679, there were 20,000 white people and 82,000 enslaved Africans. In a thirty-five year span, the enslaved African population multiplied sixteen times as the sugar cane industry expanded by leaps and bounds.

The British were not concerned with the distinction between enslaved Africans and free people of color. They were also not concerned with the occurrence of people of mixed racial identity. The census takers wanted an account of their own, read white, people and the ‘servants’, read enslaved Africans. They wanted their records the way they viewed the world, with white people superior to the black people. Anyone who did not fit into the framework they had designed, they completely ignored. Luckily, the churches did not make any such distinction and through them, we are able to get a clearer picture of the demography of Barbados.

Bibliography:

Hilary Beckles, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (New York: Cambridge, 1990), 40-48.

 National Archives London, CO1/44 no. 47xii