Urbanity, Sociability, and Commercial Exchange in the Barbados Sugar Trade: A Comparative Colonial Archaeological Perspective on Bridgetown, Barbados in the Seventeenth Century

In one of the most notable studies on the political economy of the modern Atlantic world, Sidney W. Mintz (Mintz, Sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history. Penguin, London, 1985) explored the rise of sugar production in the Caribbean and emphasized Barbados’ role in shaping the trajectory of the sugar industry in the seventeenth century. Yet, while sugar was certainly the defining commodity of the Barbadian economy, not all of the island’s citizens were directly involved in the sugar production process. Residents of the island’s main urban center, Bridgetown, lived at the interface between producers of sugar on rural estates in Barbados and consumers of sugar in metropolitan Europe. They were the glue that held the emerging Atlantic sugar business together and their efforts to develop a functioning urban infrastructure in Barbados helped fuel the trade in this valuable commodity.