by | April 18, 2006 · 9:15 pm

Sugar Cane: The Future For Barbados… or a Ball and Chain From Past Slavery?

Barbados Sugar Cane.jpg

Sugar Cane: The Future For Barbados… or a Ball and Chain From Past Slavery?

Let's hear what you think. We'll be publishing a look at the Barbados Sugar Industry next week.

Photo by Shona with her oh-so-new-not-a-scratch-as-yet digital Nikon

39 Comments

Filed under Barbados, Business, Environment, Island Life, Politics & Corruption

39 responses to “Sugar Cane: The Future For Barbados… or a Ball and Chain From Past Slavery?”

  1. Adrian
    April 20, 2006 at 1:48 am

    I think Barbados is on good ground with the approach to sugarcane. Brazil has demonstrated the effectiveness of using ethanol from sugar cane and since 1970 by mandating that all cars imported or made locally be ethanol are set to stop importing petroleum to power vehicles, a significant saving giving todays gas prices. A google on Brazil and ethenol would yield lot of information on this.

  2. jane
    April 20, 2006 at 2:49 am

    Adrain, are you serious? Do you really think this is about “ethanol”. I think it is about lining politicians pockets even further.

  3. Adrian
    April 20, 2006 at 12:36 pm

    …..Jane. But do you agree that in order for the politicians to line their pockets this venture has to be successfull? and by successfull that means that ethanol must be pruduce in sufficient quantities and of a particular quality to power cars, think of all the savings this country can achieve and the benefit to consumers and the enviornment? Who brings a successful product or service to benefit Barbados cannot be my primary concern. If it did then those amonst us that have a problem with the wealth of a few white Bajans would also have a right to their concern. I have to ask does sugarcane hold the promise of lowering our petrolium import bill? I say yes.

    The reports i have been reading suggest that it is about ethanol, and reports from other countries who have turn their sugarcane end product away from sugar to ethanol suggest to me that this is the case in Barbados. What else could sugarcane be viable for?

  4. John
    April 20, 2006 at 5:49 pm

    Remember Carsicott? Once bitten twice shy!!

  5. Islandgirl
    April 20, 2006 at 7:51 pm

    adrian said …..Jane. But do you agree that in order for the politicians to line their pockets this venture has to be successfull?

    adrian if de project fail or not no matter. de money taking happen when de place a buildin. COW an all take a big price fu buildin an den de politicians get de pocket line. two year gone by an de project fail so what? de have de pocket line at de start. work like dat every time an then bbds people stuck wit de not workin project. but pocket line happen at de start so who care if venture is successfull?

  6. Jane
    April 21, 2006 at 2:05 am

    Yes, Islandgirl, that is how it works. It is nothing new. The project does not have to work for pockets to line.

  7. John
    April 21, 2006 at 4:22 am

    Here is a list of plantations from way back in the parish of St. James all of which produced sugar cane. There are 31 in total and account for most of the total acreage of the parish.

    Some names are unrecognisable and have disappered under housing, golf etc.

    Take a few moments and see which could be used to support a sugar industry in Barbados and how may acres could be utilised for agriculture!!

    Will see if I can find St. John to provide some balance.

    Plantation Acreage
    Apes Hill 433
    Appleby 36
    Blowers 433
    Carlton 446
    Clermont 165
    Clinton’s 23
    Cox’s 307
    Endeavour 31
    Holder’s 203
    Hope 46
    Husbands 223
    In Hope 40
    Lancaster 480
    Lascelles 200
    Mullineux 250
    Mount Standfast 370
    Oxnards 152
    Plum Tree 156
    Porters 266
    Prior Park 207
    Prospect 150
    Reid’s Bay 148
    Rock Dundo 118
    Rock Pleasant 106
    Sandy Lane 465
    Sea View 28
    Sion Hill 239
    Taitts 312
    Thorpes 87
    Trents 240
    Westmoreland 346

    31 in Total 6706
    Total Acres in Parish 7800

  8. John
    April 21, 2006 at 4:40 am

    By the way, a Physical Development Plan which is reviewed every 5 years is required by law. Anyone recall seeing one which spelt out this “Development” in St. James?

  9. John
    April 21, 2006 at 5:03 am

    Here is St. John. See what you find in this list.

    Plantation Acreage
    Ashford 198
    Bath 426
    Belle Farm 36
    Bowmanston 232
    Byde Mill 324
    Cheshire 7
    Carters 24
    Claybury 300
    Cliff 236
    Cliff Cottage 31
    Clifton Hall 415
    Codrington College 438
    Colleton 537
    Eastmont 44
    Edge Cliff 94
    Endeavour 16
    Glenburnie 30
    Guinea 384
    Haynes Field 300
    Haynes Hill 121
    Henley 338
    Hope 29
    Hothersall 401
    Kendal 751
    Lightfoot’s 203
    Malvern 315
    Newcastle 455
    Pool 365
    Providence 37
    Quintynes 171
    Risk 59
    Rose Gate 30
    Sealy Hall 153
    Society 336
    Stewart’s Hill 120
    Sherbourne 11
    Todds 275
    Venture 120
    Victoria 100
    8462
    Total Acres In Parish 8600

  10. ADRIAN
    April 21, 2006 at 1:02 pm

    Ok i maybe wrong but do i detect a lack of trust in Government’s ability to bring this otherwise viable petroleum alternative to fruition? Ok i do understand this an share your ambivalance, as there are way too many abandoned, cost overruned, inefficient, and suspected conflict of interest projects, initiated by the GoB, but as i said before it matters less to me who conceptualize, put in place and profits from, any project that can have significant cost savings for the citizen, the enviornment, and the economy of Barbados. So if the Government isn’t to be trusted who is coming forward to make ethanol production a reality? What private concern has the capacity to make this happen? and why aren’t they seeking to do it? and who would have a problem with them taking on such a project?

  11. Jane
    April 21, 2006 at 4:37 pm

    Adrian, it is my understanding from an article on this website that there was no tendering process. Have you seen the tender advertised? I have not. How in Heaven’s name can anyone who genuinely wants this project to succeed get in on it? How can anyone knw what is expected?
    It is an excellent move but where are the 8,000 acres that are supposed to be going back into cane coming from?
    Publish the details and advertise for tenders. Talk is cheap.
    Barbadian taxpayers have the right to be confident that their taxes are being used for the good of Barbados and not to finance the lifestyles of a few rich and famous.
    There are too many unanswered questions and there is too much secrecy.

  12. John
    April 21, 2006 at 11:22 pm

    Well, there is always Culpeper Island …. except there is a claim on it already.

    Isn’t it also to be a part of the new Bushy Park/Whitehaven development?

    Government might find itself back in the Hague shortly.

    Not really, most of the Scotland District is out of agriculture. Look out landless farmers.

    The lake at Greenland fed by underground springs might also supply a source of irrigation water. Greenland might just have a use after all.

  13. Comment Maker
    April 22, 2006 at 2:55 am

    guys lets face facts here. Under the present regime the farmers lose money when it goes to export for the EU. I’m not even sure they make money when they sell the sugar locally. Whatever the involvement of the politicians the current way of doing things can’t continue.

    I think that the Government should at least be commended for not sitting on its ass and bemoaning that the world won’t pay them to prop up an unprofitable uncompetitive industry that really should have been consigned to the ashcan of history a long time ago.

    I will hapily pilory them if they screw up the new regime (which they may do as many have already pointed out) however I am at least prepared to give them the credit for trying something.

  14. Biscoe
    April 22, 2006 at 4:08 am

    I’m not sure I agree with Adrian that ethanol is the end all and be all, but like Comment Maker I ask what are the alternatives. Anyone old enough to remember when Tom Adams was PM back in the 80’s and electricity from surplus magasse was first fed in to the BL&P national grid. There was research into making chipboard from magasse and sheets were actually displayed and a model house built. Ethanol was talked about then as well. Looks like we, or the in-coming government, dropped the ball. We are 20 years behind the curve on the best economic use of our cane. By the way we were also totally self sufficient in a wide variety of vegetables back then too. We used to export the surplus to the rest of the Caribbean and Europe. Regrettably, praedial larceny slowly squeezed the life out of a thriving agro sector by the end of the 80s. So we can blame the Government for not amending the legislation despite repeated public cries to the Minister of Agriculture.

    So what do we do now? Grow more houses? Some people growing golf courses. If I owned 500 acres maybe I would grow one too, but it hurts my heart to see so much good land being lost from agriculture forever. I just know that my great-grandchildren are going to have serious food security issues

    I also have another problem – if the politicians don’t do something or the rich white people don’t do something, who is going to do something. Anybody here want to live in a landscape that looks like Antigua. What we need to do is press for the return of an efficient, lean, service oriented public service that is not centralised around the Ministry of FInance. The system has become moribund. Believe me any party that presents a credible proposal for civil service reform has my vote.

    Can you imagine what it would be like going to the QEH and being greeted with a smile by a medical staff that shows that it cares with some sense of urgency. That when your old aunt is wheeled into the Casualty in the throes of a stroke that someone will eventually tell you what her diagnosis and prognosis are without your feeling like you are imposing by asking a question? Or that when a forty year old man is admitted with a heart attack (he was white by the way) that he didn’t spend the next five days in the Casualty because there was no room on the ward. Attitudes people. Throwing money at the QEH is not going to solve the problem. The place has been stacked with constituents for years who feel they own the place. And I know there are a lot of fine doctors and nurses working in trying conditions. I thank them for that. But Bajans got to face facts. Our attitudes stink. And the cure lies within each one of us. Bitching and complaining about what the next guy is or is not doing ain’t going to cut it any longer. What are you doing?

  15. ross
    April 22, 2006 at 5:18 pm

    biscoe, you hit the nail on the head. Who is waiting on whom to do something? Most of us fall into this category but not all of us. It is an uphill almost impossible struggle. It is simply swimming against the flow.
    There are some of the most intelligent people in the positions who can do something but aren’t. Why?
    I have decided that when people really want a change they will get motivated. For now, all indications are that Barbadians like things the way they are, so why should a few try to change this.

  16. John
    April 23, 2006 at 3:02 am

    St. James

    It is pretty obvious that St. James has been discarded as a producer of sugar cane. The last plantation that was sacrificed for golf and luxury housing was Apes Hill . The PM himself broke ground for the project, a clear statement of his Government’s intention with respect to land use. In his language, it is at the “heart of strategic direction that the Government has chosen for this country”. Zero unemployment is expected to take place shortly in Barbados as a result of this strategic direction.

    Apart from a few fields by Lancaster, there really isn’t any sugar cane grown on the 31 plantations in St. James and hasn’t been for a while. If someone in the future were to attempt to piece together how this became the “heart of strategic direction” they would be in for a shock.

    They would consult the Town Planning Act, and would find that by law, a Physical Development Plan was necessary and should be reviewed every 5 years. If they sought further to trace the progression of land use from sugar producer to homes and golf courses for the rich and famous they would be at a loss. There simply isn’t one!!

    They might conclude that we have arrived at this state of affairs purely on a whim. They would be astonished that an activity sustainable for over three hundred years which fitted right in with the environment was exchanged for one which depends so heavily on water in a water scarce country.

    St. John

    To make way for the change of land use, COWs cows and horses had to be relocated to Kendal in St. John. Obviously the growing of cows and horses was more economically viable than sugar. Perhaps we could have explored this agricultural pursuit which would have preserved our land for future generations of Bajans. Sometime in the future there may be Bajans who actually know how to use the land in a sustainable fashion.

    St. John is clearly impacted by events in St. James designed to fit the “strategic vision” of the Government. If we read about the strategic vision above we would be totally at a loss to understand how a large foreign investor, “the hand from the south” could have invested in so much of the prime agricultural land in the Parish of St. John. Obviously they must be making money from this investment if year after year they continue to plough the fields. All the same, another hand from the south is financing Apes Hill.

    St. Andrew

    Land use in these two parishes is most interesting to analyse for any thinking Bajan. But a third Parish is worth looking at to even further compound the understanding of any future researcher let alone a present day Bajan. Below is the list of plantations for St. Andrew. Like St. James, there are perhaps a few fields of cane at Burnt House alone. But the major landowner is Government itself. Since the 1960’s, Government has reached this state through compulsory acquisition. Surely there must be a strategic vision involved here?

    There is not a field of cane on one of the Government owned plantations in St. Andrew. When Government speaks of a BDS$400 million dollar injection into the sugar industry to rebuild a factory it closed Bajans should get the jitters. Do we see private investors lining up to cash in on this investment? Where will the money come from?

    How much of a whim is it this time? Perhaps it will be another real life example of the “Emperor’s New Clothes”? Stay tuned.

    Plantation Acreage
    Bawden and The River 521
    Baxters 290
    Belle Plain 425
    Boscobelle 240
    Bruce Vale 225
    Burnt House 166
    Cane Garden 122
    Cleland 442
    Cheltenham’s 75
    Friendship or Pools 303
    Gregg Farm 223
    Greenland 403
    Haggatts 559
    Hopewell 64
    Less Beholding 15
    Lowes 7
    Morgan Lewis 354
    Mount Stepney 28
    Mount All 149
    Over Hill 235
    Scotia 150
    Sedge Pond 216
    Seniors 170
    Spring 494
    Spring Head 311
    Spring Vale 85
    Swann’s 152
    Turner’s Hall 386
    Walkers 708
    Total Plantations 29
    Total Acres 7518
    Total Acres in Parish 8778

  17. John
    April 23, 2006 at 5:35 pm

    One more parish and the horrendous state of affairs will begin to become apparent.

    You would think that St. John and St. Thomas as the most fertile parishes, and blessed with high rainfall would be the absolute last parishes to go out of sugar, the ones where profitability would be the last to go south.

    St. Thomas is amazing!!

    Here is the list of plantations from way back when.

    Plantation Acreage
    Airy Cot 12
    Apple Grove 50
    Applewhaites 456
    Arise 10
    Arthur’s Seat 95
    Ashford 165
    Battery 20
    Bennett’s 292
    Bloomsbury 86
    Bridge Cottage 3
    Bucks 47
    Bushv Park 73
    Caledonia 45
    Canefield 229
    Cane Garden 232
    Chance Field 17
    Chance Hall 20
    Clifton 241
    Content 211
    Duke’s 181.5
    Dunscombe 375
    Early Rise 8
    Edgehill 231
    Endeavour 54
    Exchange 97
    Farmer’s 306
    Fisher Pond 314
    Fortress 86
    Glendale 20
    Grandview 83
    Groves 124
    Hedgefield 59
    Highland 152
    Hillaby 297
    Hopefield 39
    Hopewell 300
    Lion Castle 234
    Mallards 92
    Mangrove Pond 234
    Mount Fruitful 21
    Mount Wilton 525
    Olive Branch 110
    Parham Park 154
    Pleasant Vale 27
    Ridgeway 212
    Rose Cottage 29
    Selmans 51
    Social Hall 142
    Strong Hope 123
    Sturges 134
    Uphill 4
    Vaucluse 582
    Walkes Spring 299
    Welches 153
    Welchman Hall 214
    White Farm 17
    Acres 8387.5
    Number of Plantations 56
    Total acres in Parish 8500.5

    I had to go and see it with my own eyes to believe it. Of the 56 plantations listed above, only three grow sugar cane, Applewaithes, Selmans and Fisher Pond. I could not believe it. Could somebody go and see if this is really so?

    Can anybody figure out why St. James, St. Thomas and St. Andrew are not producing sugar cane? These three parishes represent one quarter of the land resource of Barbados!! They all have areas in the highest rainfall section of the island. St. Thomas is one of the most fertile areas of the island.

    It seems almost criminal to have brought this country to such a position.

    How can over 100 plantations out of the 106 plantations listed not be producing sugar cane? It gets even worse, but I’ll make my point in the next comment.

  18. ross
    April 24, 2006 at 11:12 am

    Click to access BarbadosTaxNews2005.pdf

    Page 6

    “Developments in the Sugar Industry
    A plan has been approved to construct a multi
    purpose facility costing $US 150 million which is
    expected to lead viable and profitable sugarcane
    industry. The proposed facility will include:
    • 30 mega watts of electricity;
    • 12,000 tonnes of refined sugar (for the
    domestic market);
    • 10,000 tonnes of speciality sugar (for the
    export market);
    • 5,000 tonnes of speciality sugar (for the
    local market); and
    • 14 million litres of ethanol (for domestic
    and export market).
    To support these initiatives the following
    additional incentives have been proposed:
    • A capital injection of $2 million to the
    BAMC to facilitate the various preinvestment
    activities
    • A capital injection of $32 million to bring
    an additional 8,000 acres of idle land back
    into production
    • A capital injection of $2 million to
    capitalise the Cane Replanting Incentive
    Scheme
    • An annual amount of $3 million will be
    used to provide incentives for the growing
    of fuel cane varieties
    • Producers of approved varieties will
    receive a minimum payment of $90”

    AND we can buy ethanol cheaper from Brazil than we can produce it!

  19. Comment Maker
    April 25, 2006 at 2:11 am

    John,

    The answer to your question on how come three parishes are not producing cane is simple. THEY DONT MAKE MONEY!!!!!!

    Until an alternative comes up it is cheaper for a plantation to let the ground lie fallow than to produce cane. Many of them have gone into real estate with their “rab land” (and possibly arable land too!) farming is a business, and like any other business if you don’t make money you either go out of business altogether or get into a diferent business.

  20. ross
    April 25, 2006 at 3:29 am

    Am I missing something? Is putting the land that is not now in cane back into cane going to suddenly make it make money now? You think the farmers are stupid?

  21. ADRIAN
    May 1, 2006 at 8:03 pm

    In the backdrop of rising oil prices, the strain that the economy is feeling at the gas pump, and untilities, the fact that there is a best practice on sugarcane agriculture for ethanol production (Brazil), and that this BDB has led to significant reduction in expenditure and a reliance on gasolene. Can someone build a realistic reason why Barbados should not attempt to initiate this strategy? no maybe, no assumptions, hard facts that this cannot work in Barbados.

  22. Donjuan
    May 10, 2007 at 3:26 am

    Of course sugar not making monkey and if it was. It can not compete with the real estate market. Land prices are very hot in Good old BIM, even hotter than the sunshine da does sell to de tourist. On another note: I firmly believe the country should look towards producing ethanol but why so little (enough to provide for 20% of auto industry needs). Thats a waste of money. The poor man will not see any significant change in prices at the pump. It is better to produce ethanol to power the engines at Barbados Light & Power at least that is a reduction the whole country can seriously benefit from. Why import natural gas for BL&P from TT. When you can use the limited local supply for that and supplement the local demand with TT supply in the future. At least this is something the masses can benefit from now and it should also be cheaper
    I am just an ole bajy, my spelling in to good or mi words to big, but cum on people help the helpless first

  23. Yardbroom
    May 10, 2007 at 9:31 am

    Donjuan
    Delighted to have your comments, the more the merrier it is only “ideas” that matter.

  24. Sandra Taitt-Eaddy
    May 17, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    John, I’m interested in whether you have come across a plantation of old named Overton somewhere around St. Joseph/St. John perhaps.

    Thanks.

  26. Sam
    July 8, 2008 at 7:32 pm

    I am looking for information on Ridgeway Plantation, St. Thomas i.e. the history, past owners etc.

    If you have any info on this property, I would be grateful.

  27. Erika
    October 3, 2008 at 6:03 am

    Can anyone send me sources for information about the plantations from about 1800 to 1850??? I am particularly interested in Duke’s. Egerton, Haggatt’s and Harrison’s.
    thanks so much in advance for any help….
    Please email me as I may not be able to find my way back to this site…

  29. Wooding Deane
    October 31, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    Any information I can get regarding the current state of the Bajan sugar market/producers compared to back when would be great. Please email me with any info. Thanks my email is katherinecard@rogers.com

  30. John
    November 1, 2008 at 1:46 am

    Sam
    July 8, 2008 at 7:32 pm
    I am looking for information on Ridgeway Plantation, St. Thomas i.e. the history, past owners etc.

    If you have any info on this property, I would be grateful.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Ridgeway appears on maps back to 1722 as Ridgeway so there was a family called Ridgeway that owned the plantation in the early days.

    In 1859 or thereabouts it was owned by the estate of Samuel M. Alleyne, deceased. It was 212 acres then and the windmill powered a horizontal mill.

    Check the Queree papers in the archives or else google Tombstones Plantations and search this site for owners. Looks like the Wheeler family preceded the Ridgeway family.

    http://www.plantations.bb/

    There are very few Ridgeway’s when the IGI index is searched. The family may have died out or produced only daughters in its last generation in BIM.

    1. ELIZABETH RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: 04 JAN 1679 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    2. ELIZABETH RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Marriage: 12 FEB 1702 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    3. ELIZABETH RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Marriage: 21 NOV 1745 Saint Thomas, Barbados, Caribbean

    4. GRACE RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Marriage: 27 NOV 1662 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    5. HENRIETTA RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: 30 MAR 1702 Saint Michael, Barbados, Caribbean

    6. JOHN RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Male Christening: 01 MAY 1684 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    7. JONATHAN RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Male Marriage: 19 JUN 1682 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    8. MARY RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: 25 DEC 1688 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    9. MARY RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: 23 NOV 1689 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    10. MARY RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: 05 NOV 1690 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    11. MARY RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Christening: JAN 1739 Saint Thomas, Barbados, Caribbean

    12. PATIENCE RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Female Marriage: 20 NOV 1740 Saint Thomas, Barbados, Caribbean

    13. ROBERT RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Male Christening: 28 DEC 1682 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

    14. SAMUEL RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Male Marriage: 16 APR 1738 Saint Michael, Barbados, Caribbean

    15. THOMAS RIDGEWAY – International Genealogical Index
    Gender: Male Christening: 15 FEB 1693 Christ Church, Barbados, Caribbean

  31. John
    November 1, 2008 at 1:55 am

    Sandra Taitt-Eaddy
    May 17, 2008 at 7:01 pm
    John, I’m interested in whether you have come across a plantation of old named Overton somewhere around St. Joseph/St. John perhaps.

    Thanks.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Looks like it was called Horse Hill and Overtons.

    Check http://www.plantations.bb/

  32. John
    November 1, 2008 at 1:57 am

    Erika
    October 3, 2008 at 6:03 am
    Can anyone send me sources for information about the plantations from about 1800 to 1850??? I am particularly interested in Duke’s. Egerton, Haggatt’s and Harrison’s.
    thanks so much in advance for any help….
    Please email me as I may not be able to find my way back to this site…
    +++++++++++++++++

    Check http://www.plantations.bb/

  33. John
    November 1, 2008 at 2:09 am

    Wooding Deane
    October 31, 2008 at 7:09 pm
    Any information I can get regarding the current state of the Bajan sugar market/producers compared to back when would be great. Please email me with any info. Thanks my email is katherinecard@rogers.com
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    We manage to produce about what we produced at the end of slavery, about 30,000 to 40,000 tons. Remember seeing a chart in Richard Goddard’s book on George Washington.

    Peak production was in 1957, greater than 200,000 tons, and repeated again in 1967.

    After that, it has been all down!!

    Colin Hudson used to have a chart which chronicled the island’s sugar production from back when and on it he also managed to include the “assistance” agriculture got from Government.

    The negative correlationship was spectacular!!

  34. Erika
    November 24, 2008 at 4:57 am

    John…thank you….(found my way back here!)….I have looked at the site you recommended “Plantations.bb” and that’s where I found my ancestoral name and the names of those 4 plantations, but have not found anything about those plantations. Can you suggest any more resources??? (I noticed two of them in your lists above…you must be getting those lists and acreages from somewhere…). I am particularly interested in John IFILL who was manager at Egerton in 1803 and 1825. Benjamin and William Ifill were managers at Dukes, Haggetts, and Harrison’s. I also am trying to find out the relationship between John and the other two…
    Any suggested resources would be gratefully received. Thanks for your previous response. Erika

  35. ACC
    May 6, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    I’m currently doing a project about the future prospects of the sugar cane industry. I Looked at why it went down – according to what i found out, it declined after the Apprentice ship system (why would any slave want to go back anyway – but then increased again. There wasn’t much advancement for while , but then of course, in 1888 John Redman Bovell who is on the BDS $2 bill. He began to put into use a discovery which was made by a slave on Dodds plantation, about the fact that sugar cane plants cane be grown from seeds, and not just from ratoons. The result is the West Indies Central Sugra Cane Breeding Station in Groves St. George.

  36. Michael
    July 13, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    Sam, Ridgeway Plantation was owned by my
    Uncle.. Andrew Arthur,, he is retired and lives in Florida.

  37. Edge Edgerton
    January 8, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    I have perhaps one of the largest (>20,000 names&links) Edgerton/Egerton data bases. However, it lacks the Barbados / England connections of William Egerton, Rowland Egerton , his son Robert Egerton ,other Egertons and their Plantation names and acres including the history of Egerton Plantation in Christ Church. Also, the name of Abraham Russell’s Plantation in Christ Church. Any assistance will be much appreciated and anyone with Egerton/Edgerton inquiries will be answered as my data allows. Thank you.

  38. Katherine
    February 2, 2010 at 12:09 pm

    Hello Edge,

    I read the above with great interest. It is hard to find such information in the regular public libraries. You have to request rare books from university libraries with steep fees and even then the books are few and far between.

    Please could you let me know how I might access the information in general, but the. I am particularly interested in the Barbados / England connections of William Egerton, Rowland Egerton, his son Robert Egerton , other Egertons and their Plantation names and acres including the history of the Egerton Plantation in Christ Church.

    My interest stems from the genealogy and history of the Egerton family.

    Any help would be much appreciated.

    Kindest regards,

    Katherine Byrnell

  39. ben
    September 16, 2013 at 1:48 am

    Hi guys,

    My mother lives on Ridgeway Plantation in St.Thomas which is now considered St.James of recent. I have explored the land a few times. I plan to do a very thoroughl one soon. I would appreciate any additional information on the plantation myself.