Insights to Barbados. These are in-depth articles of people and places in Barbados. Ian Clayton, a keen observer of people, writes about characters and situations he encounters while weekending and working in barbados villages and towns.
Behind “Wash”: Barbados’s 1661 Slave Code and the Atlantic Blueprint
Barbados became Britain’s first slave society in the 17th century. The 1661 Barbados Slave Code legalised chattel slavery and influenced laws across the English Caribbean—and beyond.
This 56-second trailer pairs the fiction of Washington Black with the real historical backdrop.
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Halifax fueled Barbados’ sugar economy—then turned into a destination for freedom seekers and later planned migration. The result: world-class culture and leadership. This is just a sample of the full deep dive Podcast.
Abstract of the full Podcase on WashingtonBlack and its' couterpart Rogues in Paradise
Stories move in two directions at once. Imagination lifts us above the field; memory asks us to walk it. Washington Black offers the lift. Rogues in Paradise offers the walk.
The lift matters. It lets us feel the urgency of escape and the sweetness of possibility. But the walk matters more if we want to understand how a place becomes itself.
In Barbados, that means facing the first British slave society, the export of laws and discipline across the Caribbean, and the entangled routes that reached all the way to Halifax. It means hearing voices that rarely make it to the screen—the rogues who tease, resist, hustle, pray, and joke their way through history.
