From Maggie’s Farm

My Christmas present from Mrs. BD was a winter hiking and birding trip on Barbados. I’m not a big fan of the Caribbean, but what the heck. Lots of good hiking along the 24-mile old railroad bed, and famous birding.

She gave me this 1640 book to go along with it: A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados.

The author, Robert Ligon, was a gentleman, highly educated and literate but a third son so given nothing but education. After losing what little he had on a bad real estate investment in London, he headed to the Caribbean to seek his fortune. He found no fortune, but his book remains the best first-hand report of the Caribbean of the time. An elegant writer too with interest in the geology, the soils, the fish, the trees and lumber, the birds, the architecture, the cuisine, the booze (French brandy for the planters, rum for everybody else including the slaves), etc.

And in the people. The Brit planters (sugar cane, thanks to Columbus) were mostly drunken whoremongers but some were not. Ligon befriended many of the slaves. He even taught them music. Ligon was a talented lutist, and felt the slaves could benefit from learning how to make tunes instead of just their African drumming for their Sunday dance and rum parties.

He also defended their wishes to become Christian. The slaves believed that Christianity seemed to impart wisdom. This was illegal at the time: you could not have a Christian as a slave.

Interestingly but unsurprisingly, the slaves were treated much better than the indentured servants from the British Isles. The planters owned the valuable slaves, but the servants were just rentals. Ligon’s ship carried some servants and picked up some slaves to trade while provisioning in the Cape Verde Islands. At the time, however, the bulk of the slave trade was headed to Brazil.

Why the Pineapple? By the 1600s Pineapples were everywhere, thanks to Capt. Cook.

Most interesting book I’ve read in 2018. The intro and the footnotes are superb too.

NOTE: Maggies Farm. We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn’t pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does “try my best to be just like I am,” and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

For more on this story go to; http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/31043-The-1640s-in-the-Caribbean.html