A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
Book description
Ligon's True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados is the most significant book-length English text written about the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. [It] allows one to see the contested process behind the making of the Caribbean sugar/African slavery complex. Kupperman is one of the leading scholars of…
Why read it?
2 authors picked A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
If you want to know exactly what things looked like and what living in Barbados felt like in the 17th century, this is the book. Originally published in 1657, this is like a travelogue of the Island that became a prosperous English colony known for its sugar plantations, rum, and slave trade. Ligon was a royalist in exile during the English civil war.
From Nancy's list on the West Indies sugar and slave trade in the 17th century.
A refugee from the English Civil War, Ligon arrived in Barbados in 1647 and purchased a share of a sugar plantation there. In this surprisingly readable account of his experiences, he provides a vivid picture of a society newly colonized by the English but already deeply committed to plantation agriculture and an enslaved labor force. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the book is Ligon’s various interactions with Africans, whom he is able to see as individuals, and by whose personalities, appearance, and talents he sometimes finds himself captivated, yet whom he has few moral scruples about buying or selling.
From Natalie's list on the English Caribbean.
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