Barbados Wrote the Code. The Atlantic Followed.

Barbados did not just grow sugar; in 1661, it wrote a code that turned people into property and influenced servant law across the British Atlantic. That is the world Washington Black is born into. Our new short explainer presents the Barbados Slave Code and why historians call Barbados Britain's first slave society. The post links the legal structure to day-to-day reality in mills, boiling homes, and markets, and touches the Halifax trade routes that linked islands to northern ports. It is a brisk guide for readers who desire the history behind the fiction without wading through a textbook.



Enjoy first, then check out the locations and people behind it.

barbados history