Barbados - Historical Essay - E-book - Multi-format

Barbados is a very respectable little island, and it makes a great deal of sugar. It is not picturesquely beautiful, as are almost all the other Antilles. But this very absence of scenic beauty has saved it from the fate of its neighbours. A country that is broken into landscapes, that boasts of its mountains, woods, and waterfalls, that is regarded for its wild loveliness, is seldom propitious to agriculture.
A portion of the surface in all such regions defies the improving farmer. But, beyond this, such ground under the tropics offers every inducement to the black people squatter. In Jamaica, Dominica, St. Lucia, and Grenada, the black people, when emancipated, could squat and make himself happy; but in Barbados there was not an inch for him.