Barbados Beat is pleased to welcome guest blogger Richard Ligon, an English business agent and natural science writer. Richard visited Barbados in 1647 and is here to tell us about some of what he saw and experienced during his time on the island. This report is the first in a series that Richard will be presenting over the coming months.
Like most of you have, I’m sure, I had read my Hakluyt and my Purchas, and even good old Sir Walter Raleigh before I headed to the Caribbean. I’m a big believer in doing some research before setting off to sea, so it made sense to read the accounts of the Americas written by some of the great English writers on colonization. So, I thought I knew what I was getting into, but if my turn in debtors’ prison has taught me anything, it is the danger about making assumptions and trusting what other people write! No surprises then that my experiences on Barbados didn’t exactly match what I’d been expecting. That’s not to say it was all bad – I actually rather enjoyed myself some of the time. But 60 is a bit old to be setting out on a new life, and I don’t think I had the kind of energy that the younger planters had.
I first caught sight of Barbados in September 1647. I traveled to the island on the Achilles, a nicely proportioned vessel with a decent captain and experienced crew. Our adventure across the Atlantic was fairly uneventful (although the stories I could tell about our time in African and the people we met!…well, that is for another time).
Anyway, after what seemed like an interminable time at sea, Barbados finally hove into sight. Seeing it for the first time, all I could think about was how it was well worth the wait. I could not believe how beautiful the island was. Trees the like of which I had not seen before soared into the sky, covering the eastern parts of the island, as the waves crashed on the rocky cliffs below. Dotted around the coast were plantation houses, each perched just a little higher than the next, to better catch the breezes that flowed across the island, born on the trade winds. The vistas were truly magnificent. I could not imagine a more dazzling or exciting place to be.
The port, at Bridge Town (or Indian Bridge as some of the older residents call it) was bustling. But not with the usual activity of the docks – some kind of strange plague had affected the population in the months before we arrived, and everyone was running to and fro, the business of burying the dead at the top of everyone’s minds. Although we had planned to sell our horses and cattle and move on to see what else the Caribbean had to offer, we decided to stay, and buy a plantation.
Colonel Modyford, with whom I traveled, bought 250 acres, complete with all the things a plantation should have: a large house, good storage, a sugar works complete with a boiling house. There was even a smith’s forge – all mod cons. Oh, and of course the people to work it – 95 African and 3 Indian women (all slaves, and their children), as well as 28 Christian servants. And horses and cows for milk and beef too. My favorite part of the plantation was the fruit orchard. There were lemons and limes and oranges and plantains and pineapples and all kinds of good things. I was quite happy to live on the plantation and take care of it for Col. Modyford, which I did for over two years.
So now you know how I got here, and how my story begins. Next time I’ll tell you about the people who lived on Barbados.
Sources:
Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes (London, 1657), 21-23.
Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2nd Edition, 2000), chapter 1.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, ‘Ligon, Richard (c.1585–1662)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/74579, accessed 22 Aug 2011]
