The Island of Barbados

Spanish explorers discovered Barbados in the early sixteenth century but showed little interest in exploiting the island. In 1625, British merchant adventurers seized Barbados from Spain and had begun cultivating the island with sugar plantations by the 1640s. Finding sugar production a labor-intensive process, and with no large population of native Caribs to put to work, British planters imported African slaves to toil in the fields and mills. Over twenty-six thousand slaves were transported from West Africa to Barbados in the twenty years before Sailmaker made this painting; and slave labor turned the island into the most profitable British colony in the seventeenth century. Sailmaker, a Dutch painter who settled in England, represents the British and Dutch merchant vessels that shipped slaves to Barbados and sugar back to European markets. He never visited the West Indies and based this painting entirely on maps and plans.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016