Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 2 of 4
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0:01 - 0:03... lives or their experiences.
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0:03 - 0:06It was as if they were there but they did not exist.
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0:06 - 0:10They were the proverbial invisible people of the 17th century.
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0:17 - 0:18"This island is the dunghill
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0:18 - 0:23whereon England does cast forth its rubbish.
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0:23 - 0:26Rogues and whores and suchlike people
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0:26 - 0:29are those which are generally brought here.
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0:29 - 0:32In the most unsupportible captivity,
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0:32 - 0:34grinding at the mills,
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0:34 - 0:36attending the furnaces,
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0:36 - 0:37or digging in the scorching island,
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0:37 - 0:41having nothing to feed on but potato roots.
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0:43 - 0:45Bought and sold from one planter to another,
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0:45 - 0:49or attached as horses and beasts for the debts of their masters,
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0:49 - 0:52being whipped at the whipping post as rogues
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0:52 - 0:55for their master's pleasure."
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0:57 - 1:00The Africans are accustomed to the climate,
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1:00 - 1:02these people were not.
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1:03 - 1:08That is why in bond servants didn't really last in Barbados,
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1:08 - 1:12because they died off too quickly.
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1:12 - 1:17Furthermore, if you only, you only have use of the bonds for 5 or 6 years,
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1:17 - 1:20you've got everything you can out of him.
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1:20 - 1:22If you have a slave, you have him for life,
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1:22 - 1:25so you're likely to pay more attention to him.
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1:26 - 1:28That doesn't mean the blacks didn't suffer,
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1:28 - 1:30they suffered a lot.
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1:33 - 1:35[narrator] St Nicholas Abbey is in the Scotland district,
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1:35 - 1:37the oldest plantation house on the island,
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1:37 - 1:40dating back to 1658.
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1:40 - 1:43Until the 1940's it produced sugar and rum for export,
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1:43 - 1:45and will do again.
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1:45 - 1:49Larry Warren, an architect of poor white descent himself,
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1:49 - 1:52bought St Nicholas to make it a going concern once more,
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1:52 - 1:57but also as a living tribute to generations of both black and white Barbadians. [/narrator]
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1:59 - 2:03That mill is an embodiment of St Nicholas,
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2:03 - 2:08because at one stage in Barbados there were 110 or more of those mills on the island,
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2:08 - 2:11and that's the last remaining one.
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2:11 - 2:13Just by fate, it was preserved.
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2:15 - 2:18And I always reflect on St Nicholas too, because, um,
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2:18 - 2:21if you think about it,only 350 years of its history,
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2:21 - 2:25and all the cane fires, and potenial fires and problems and so on,
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2:25 - 2:27it survived,
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2:27 - 2:31and I believe it's actually, you know, kind of meant to happen.
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2:31 - 2:35But that mill, ehm, was really destined to be scrapped,
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2:35 - 2:38and then Colonel Lay, who was the owner here,
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2:38 - 2:40and someone with the Canadian government,
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2:40 - 2:43got together and they preserved it and brought it here.
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2:45 - 2:48In many respects, a lot of the people that do go to Barbados
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2:48 - 2:50feel so comfortable there,
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2:50 - 2:54they just don't go beyond to know the history of Barbados.
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2:55 - 2:56Of course, since owning St Nicholas,
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2:56 - 2:58I've read books on it,
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2:58 - 3:06and quite amazed at you know, the period around the 1650's,
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3:06 - 3:12and Oliver Cromwell and how he in fact transported all of these people here
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3:12 - 3:13to become slaves,
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3:13 - 3:16and in fact were treated as bad or even worse, yknow?
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3:18 - 3:20[narrator] Winston Gill, of Scottish descent,
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3:20 - 3:23has worked as ranger at St Nicholas Abbey for 30 years.[/narrator]
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3:24 - 3:28To most black people, they think they were the only ones that were in slavery,
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3:29 - 3:32but to some person who understand and know history
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3:32 - 3:36is that all _ were in slavery, the white and the black.
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3:36 - 3:38And the white was the first slave in Barbados.
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3:38 - 3:40By the end of the 17th century,
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3:40 - 3:44a lot of the white people that were doing manual labour on the estates,
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3:44 - 3:47were driven off in preference of the black,
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3:47 - 3:50because their production was not as great as the black,
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3:50 - 3:52so then they went on some to another market,
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3:52 - 3:56some went on to other Caribbean islands.
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3:56 - 4:01Well, the ones that stayed still continued to weather the storm on the island,
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4:01 - 4:03the white people were mainly centred around Bath and St John,
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4:03 - 4:05Churchill and
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4:08 - 4:13The Scottish that're left behind think that haggis and puddin' and souse.
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4:13 - 4:16People tell you that slaves invented puddin' and souse, but it never true.
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4:17 - 4:19Puddin' and souse Scottish _.
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4:19 - 4:21... and what they call haggis,
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4:21 - 4:22we call it _ here.
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4:24 - 4:26[narrator] Apart from the local haggis,
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4:26 - 4:29the connections with Scotland can be seen in surprising places.
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4:29 - 4:31In the very brickwork, in fact,
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4:31 - 4:34of a plantation house like St Nicholas.
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4:36 - 4:40The poor seldom leave behind much evidence of their lives,
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4:40 - 4:41it's blown away in hurricanes
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4:41 - 4:44and writen out by the rich and powerful.
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4:44 - 4:47Fred Smith and his students are searching for clues
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4:47 - 4:51to the daily lives of those resilient forgotten people.
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4:51 - 4:55It's clear that poor whites lived very similar lives to black slaves in the early days.
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4:55 - 4:59The difference was class, not race.
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4:59 - 5:03You have to dig deep in this beautiful place to find evidence of suffering. [/narrator]
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5:05 - 5:06The archeological work that we've been doing here
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5:06 - 5:13has been focused on trying to get a general sense of plantation life here at St Nicholas Abbey.
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5:15 - 5:17There seems to be a preponderance of bowl forms,
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5:17 - 5:24um, and greater emphasis on bowls than on flatware plates,
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5:24 - 5:28and this probably reflects the emphasis on stewed foods,
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5:28 - 5:31whereas the planter's house has a great deal more flatware,
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5:31 - 5:35associated probably with roasts and other types of foods.
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5:37 - 5:41Rum today is the 2nd most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in the world,
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5:41 - 5:44but in the 17th century and the 18th century,
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5:44 - 5:46it was really a drink of enslaved peoples,
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5:46 - 5:50of poor whites, indentured servants, of sea men.
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5:50 - 5:51Life was very challenging,
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5:51 - 5:54especially the disease environment in early Barbados
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5:54 - 5:57in which many people were dying from a variety of tropical diseases,
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5:57 - 6:02uh, hurricanes, earthquakes, difficult place to live,
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6:02 - 6:05especially if you were poor, uh, or enslaved.
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6:05 - 6:10And so rum really kind of helped meet the challenges of daily life in Barbados,
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6:10 - 6:13and provided a temporary escape.
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6:15 - 6:18[narrator] One early settler wrote to his father:
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6:20 - 6:23"To send out 50 cases of good spirit,
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6:23 - 6:27and make no question than that you will have great gains from them,
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6:27 - 6:31they are generally such drunkards on this island,
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6:31 - 6:34that they will find coppers to buy their drinks,
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6:34 - 6:38although they go without themselves.
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6:38 - 6:42I have seen, upon the Sabbath day as I have been walking to church,
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6:42 - 6:44first one, presently another,
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6:44 - 6:47laying in the highway so drunk
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6:47 - 6:51that there be land crabs that have bit off some of their fingers,
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6:51 - 6:53some of their toes,
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6:53 - 6:55and have killed some before they have wakened."
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6:58 - 7:00They drank heavily,
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7:02 - 7:04in fact that was a common feature among these whites,
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7:04 - 7:09you know, they consume vast quantities of alcohol,
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7:09 - 7:12obviously that would have had some effect on overall health,
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7:12 - 7:14you know, many many years later.
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7:16 - 7:18[narrator] Our expectation of the West Indies,
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7:18 - 7:20that being white means being rich,
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7:20 - 7:22simply isn't true.
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7:22 - 7:25The descendants of those first servants who were cheated out of their inheritance,
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7:25 - 7:29entered a century and a half of social and economic paralysis,
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7:29 - 7:35subsistence farming, menial labour, and domestic service were the best they could hope for. [/narrator]
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7:37 - 7:40It was logical for the people of the time to conclude
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7:40 - 7:44that over-consumption of rum
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7:44 - 7:48led to this laziness, and this inability to work hard,
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7:48 - 7:55and the whole pejorative stereotype that developed associated with poor whites.
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7:55 - 7:59But actually there are medical reasons
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7:59 - 8:02that explain some of the dibilities.
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8:02 - 8:08A large percentage of the poor whites in Barbados who were too poor to have shoes,
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8:08 - 8:11and so who worked bare feet in the fields etc,
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8:11 - 8:13picked up parasitic infections,
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8:13 - 8:16particularly hookworm infections.
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8:16 - 8:19Somebody with masses of hookworms in their body
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8:19 - 8:22wouldn't be able to respond well to situations,
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8:22 - 8:25would stumble, slouch, would move very slowly,
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8:25 - 8:31and be seen sort of, like, the village idiot stereotype.
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8:33 - 8:37Enslaved Africans who didn't drink as much as the poor whites,
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8:37 - 8:39they had family networks,
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8:39 - 8:42they had large communities of people that could work together,
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8:42 - 8:46and sort of community networks that would help ease the challenges of everyday life.
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8:46 - 8:50Whereas poor whites tended to live sort of on the outskirts of communities,
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8:50 - 8:52very little opportunities for upward mobility,
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8:52 - 8:57and as a result, sort of lost themselves in drinking.
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8:59 - 9:05Part of the issue was that the whites remained by themselves,
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9:05 - 9:11and so you had a situation where there was quite a bit of inter-marrying.
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9:11 - 9:13Where you would have had quite a lot of families marrying each other.
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9:13 - 9:16First or second cousins marrying each other,
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9:16 - 9:21just _ for a white female to marry a black guy.
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9:21 - 9:25So, they married predominantly white men.
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9:25 - 9:28And of course, the whole issue of incest.
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9:28 - 9:31I mean, it's not a nice thing to speak about,
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9:31 - 9:35but that obviously happened in those type of communities.
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9:38 - 9:44If one looks very quickly at the demographic patterns and racial patterns in Barbados over time,
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9:44 - 9:47Barbados started as a white majority colony,
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9:47 - 9:52but by the 1660's it had become a black majority
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9:52 - 9:58where about 60% of the population was black, and 40% was white.
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9:58 - 10:01And what they did with this large poor white population on the island
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10:01 - 10:08was they used it as a buffer group between themselves and the black slave population.
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10:08 - 10:10And during the period of slavery
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10:10 - 10:15the poor white population was critical to the status and success
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10:15 - 10:20and if you like peace of mind of the planter class.
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10:24 - 10:281640's you might have had maybe, ehm, 4 or 5 thousand black slaves,
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10:28 - 10:31but by 1660 you had about 60,000 slaves,
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10:31 - 10:36and the population moved down to about 10,000 whites and 60,000 blacks,
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10:36 - 10:40so they need to have some form of militia,
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10:40 - 10:43or military for internal security,
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10:43 - 10:47and the laws were made that for every 30 acres of land,
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10:47 - 10:51you had to have one able-bodied white man serving in the militia.
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10:51 - 10:54Once you were in that that rut of a poor white,
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10:54 - 10:56you had no education,
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10:56 - 10:58you may become an overseer,
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10:58 - 11:00ehm, you were not ever a land owner.
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11:02 - 11:06The women of the militia tenants also earned some money because of course
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11:06 - 11:13each plantation had the contractual or economic responsibility to supply clothes, etc
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11:13 - 11:15for the slave population,
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11:15 - 11:19and so many of these white women were employed as seamstresses etc.
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11:21 - 11:23[narrator] The poor make use of everything,
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11:23 - 11:25as Fred Smith finds out in the militia families croft. [/narrator]
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11:28 - 11:30Perhaps the most interesting finds were these tiny pieces pf ceramic,
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11:30 - 11:36that have been whittled down into, uh, what are gaming pieces.
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11:36 - 11:40These were probably used for chess or for backgammon.
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11:40 - 11:42We've also found a large number of buttons,
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11:42 - 11:45which suggest that perhaps somebody at some time at this house
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11:45 - 11:48may have been a seamstress or a tailor.
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11:48 - 11:53Here you can see even better the coral rubble construction techniques that were used,
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11:53 - 11:54uh, building these houses.
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11:54 - 11:59These were just coral rubble that were picked up from the ground and surrounding bedrock,
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11:59 - 12:03uh, pieced together using a lime plaster mortar
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12:03 - 12:07that would sort of bake the limestone
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12:07 - 12:09and get it into a powder form, add water,
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12:09 - 12:12and that would be the basis for sort of concrete in those days.
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12:12 - 12:15And it's very strong construction technique, as you can see.
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12:15 - 12:17[narrator] So it's weathered well. [/narrator]
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12:17 - 12:19Yeah it has certainly lasted.
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12:22 - 12:27[narrator] Ironically, things got worse for the poor whites after emancipation in 1834.
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12:27 - 12:32Apprenticed and experienced black slaves were able to transfer their skills to the free market.
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12:32 - 12:34Redlegs didn't have those skills,
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12:34 - 12:38and anyway, they didn't want to do work thay associated with black slavery,
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12:38 - 12:44identifying instead with the rich planters who wanted nothing to do with them. [/narrator]
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12:46 - 12:51During slavery, the slaves were not supposed to do anything that's skilled.
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12:51 - 12:57But of course, eh, there were skilled carpenters, who did all sorts of skilled work.
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12:57 -But they weren't supposed to.
- Title:
- Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 2 of 4
- Description:
-
The west coast of Barbados is known as a favorite winter destination for British tourists, ranging from the upmarket Sandy Lane resort to the all-drinks-included package holiday crowd arriving by economy class. Many will come from Scotland, but few will realise that just fourteen miles away on the rocky east side of the island live a community of McCluskies, Sinclairs and Baileys who are not, as might be expected, black Bajans bearing the family names given by slave owners centuries ago, but poor whites eking out a subsistence existence. Known as the Redlegs, they are the direct descendants of the Scots transported to Barbados by Cromwell after the Civil War. Scottish author and broadcaster Chris Dolan went to meet them to discover why they are still here 350 years later, what they know about their roots, and what their prospects are today when they are the poorest community on the island. Chris speaks to leading historians in Barbados and Scotland about how their ancestors were treated when they first arrived. Was their plight as severe as that of the black slaves from Africa? Nearly two centuries after emancipation, this Redleg community has yet to find a role on the island, where it is damned by association with the days of slavery, even though many of its forbears were victims themselves. In recent years, it has begun to come out of its racial isolation; could there yet be a hopeful future for this lost Scottish tribe?
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 13:01
Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Barbado'ed Scotland's Sugar Slaves part 2 of 4 | ||
Radical Access Mapping Project added a translation |