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A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados
Ligon's True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados is the most significant book-length English text written about the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. [It] allows one to see the contested process behind the making of the Caribbean sugar/African slavery complex. Kupperman is one of the leading scholars of the early modern Atlantic world. . . . I cannot think of any scholar better prepared to write an Introduction that places Ligon, his text, and Barbados in an Atlantic historical context. The Introduction is quite thorough, readable, and accurate; the notes [are] exemplary! --Susan Parrish, University of Michigan
- GenresHistoryGrad SchoolSchool
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1673
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About the author
Richard Ligon
15 booksRichard Ligon (c.1585 - 1662), an English author, lost his fortune as a royalist during the English Civil War (1642-1651), and during this turbulent time in England he found himself, as he notes in his narrative, a "stranger in my own country". On 14 June 1647, he left for Barbados to gain his fortune in the New World, like many of his fellow countrymen. Ligon purchased half of a sugar plantation in Barbados. After two years residence on the island he was attacked by a fever, and returned to England in 1650. He was soon afterward put into prison by his creditors. There are conflicting reports as to whether his narrative was conceived of in prison as a way to pay off his creditors and gain his freedom, or before his imprisonment at the urging of Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury. His work, a folio with maps and illustrations, is entitled A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes and was published in London in 1657 and again in 1673.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 13, 2025
Interesting from a historical perspective but abysmal to read
March 19, 2020
Tough reading as it was actually written in the 1600’s. Give accounting expenses to purchase island and all servants on it. Discusses the diseases encountered, dangers of drought, hunting for animals ( like turtles), and life at sea on a boat
May 22, 2019
This book was such an interesting look into the precursor of what was to come in the Caribbean, more settlers, sugar production and chattel slavery.
April 2, 2024
Reading this book is so nerve wracking. There is this whole bunch of very disturbing accounts of Black enslaved people in Barbados, the way plantations are run, families work, indigenous people are dealt with, and so on and so forth. However, it’s an essential reading if you want to understand not only the mechanisms that helped capitalism to emerge but also the way the European consciousness was shaped around non-Europeans. This edition also comes with a very handy glossary that lists the words that in Ligon’s days had different meanings than what they do now. For some reason, I have to read other books like this too! Rip my nerves!
August 28, 2024
I found this book via something else I was reading and originally looked at it to check out the description of the pineapple, which had been highly praised. (Rightly, it was magnificent.) The book was so lively and well-written that I decided to go back to the beginning and read it all. I chose not to read the introduction as I wanted to enjoy it free of 21st century ideological overlay.
The History was published in 1657, when the author was in his 60s, having had a rather up and down existence, culminating in his being imprisoned for debt. This book describes his voyage from England to Barbados and what he found there as part-owner of a sugar plantation. He hoped the book would raise enough money to get him out of jail, and was intended partly as an entertaining account of his adventures and partly as an attempt to satisfy, by accurate description, the curiosity of those who had not travelled to foreign parts. Ligon is a careful observer and takes his work seriously. His recommendations for setting up one's own plantation would be useful were one ever to consider taking such a step. He reminded me of the bird painter Audubon, who documents Nature, but artfully.
Ligon is a man of his time, and doesn't question its institutions. It went without saying in his time that enslaved people would be needed to work plantations. His attitude to this is entirely racialised. He rarely mentions 'slaves', using the word 'negroes' instead, because what would a negro be in that context but enslaved? But he is quite modern in that he regards 'negroes' as an inferior race until he meets one, when he begins to appreciate their finer qualities. His description of plantation social structure tells us that attitudes changed and hardened over the following century. At this stage, 'servants', who are more disposable in view of their short-term status, seem to have somewhat higher status than 'negroes', but to be treated rather less well, and held in lower esteem, as inefficient troublemakers. 'Negroes', on the other hand, are often praised, though Ligon looks askance at their habit of hanging themselves whenever they take offence, and also hanging their wives in the case of the unfortunate woman producing twins.
What little I've read in the way of commentary made me think about Ligon's presentation of women .
Four female archetypes exist in the text, all representing different facets of what he would have thought of as womanhood, and these are so far unrelated that he seems to be discussing four different phenomena. In his retelling of an old story, he names an Indian woman Yarico, who helped a mercenary Englishman, Thomas Inkle during an ambush, and was betrayed by being sold into slavery as soon as the ungrateful Thomas got the chance. Yarico is a mythical creature, a child of nature living in a magical cave who bears no relation to the correctly socialised ladies of the 17th century. We know this because she has had many lovers, which puts her outside normal conventions. She stands as an archetype for a generous Nature, despoiled by human greed.
During his voyage to Barbados, Ligon meets an African woman who strikes him as very attractive and therefore as pa otential sexual partner, though he's not so crude as to put it that way. She is as exotic as the wild Yarico, but grounded in real time. This woman can be respected on account of her status as mistress of a white man, their host, and Ligon even flirts a bit, though if there was more than this, it is not recorded. The encounter segues into a meeting with some African 'virgins' aged about 15, whom he describes in great detail and with respect. These are the only only women in relation to whom he describes any emotional engagement, being quite enthralled by their charms, but the amount of detail he uses suggests that he is already thinking of them as specimens.
The very visual description of these Virgins is later applied to the enslaved women on the plantation. Ligon again approaches them with scientific detachment, since they are yet another class of female, possessing neither beauty, charm or status of any kind. Ligon gives a careful description of them, with particular attention given to their large breasts, which droop alarmingly as time goes on and one baby follows another. I have no doubt that if lower-class women walked about London with their tops off, Ligon, with his artist's focus on the visual, would have no compunction in describing them in detail. They are objects, and Ligon humanises them only as mothers, describing the pleasure they take from carrying their happy children on their backs as they stoop to pluck weeds.
Finally, when Ligon's voyage is almost over, he recounts, almost as an afterthought, how a 'little virgin' saves them, spinning thread to mend the destroyed sails on their ship. She is not described, because she is no curiosity at all. Everyone knows what a little virgin is like. Yet she is the midwife who delivers them to safety and to their homes, so familiar that anyone can imagine her, the very soul of home, useful, humble and essential.
Richard Ligon is a good companion. He's open-minded, curious and creates a fine word-picture. His book has become on of the key sources for 17th century colonial studies. He marvels at the natural world and effectively shares his wonderment. He's proficient in many of the arts. He's obviously an excellent cook because having described the flora and fauna around him, he also tells one how to cook and serve them. (Not including the Negros, obviously). His spelling is a charm and a delight. One reviewer wrote 'Ligon found beauty not only in places and people, but in living itself.'
Nevertheless, and despite his many talents, Richard Ligon was a serial loser. He did get out of jail, and his book was published a few years later. He lived out his old age in poverty, but he left a marvellous legacy, a book which can only enrich whoever reads it.
The History was published in 1657, when the author was in his 60s, having had a rather up and down existence, culminating in his being imprisoned for debt. This book describes his voyage from England to Barbados and what he found there as part-owner of a sugar plantation. He hoped the book would raise enough money to get him out of jail, and was intended partly as an entertaining account of his adventures and partly as an attempt to satisfy, by accurate description, the curiosity of those who had not travelled to foreign parts. Ligon is a careful observer and takes his work seriously. His recommendations for setting up one's own plantation would be useful were one ever to consider taking such a step. He reminded me of the bird painter Audubon, who documents Nature, but artfully.
Ligon is a man of his time, and doesn't question its institutions. It went without saying in his time that enslaved people would be needed to work plantations. His attitude to this is entirely racialised. He rarely mentions 'slaves', using the word 'negroes' instead, because what would a negro be in that context but enslaved? But he is quite modern in that he regards 'negroes' as an inferior race until he meets one, when he begins to appreciate their finer qualities. His description of plantation social structure tells us that attitudes changed and hardened over the following century. At this stage, 'servants', who are more disposable in view of their short-term status, seem to have somewhat higher status than 'negroes', but to be treated rather less well, and held in lower esteem, as inefficient troublemakers. 'Negroes', on the other hand, are often praised, though Ligon looks askance at their habit of hanging themselves whenever they take offence, and also hanging their wives in the case of the unfortunate woman producing twins.
What little I've read in the way of commentary made me think about Ligon's presentation of women .
Four female archetypes exist in the text, all representing different facets of what he would have thought of as womanhood, and these are so far unrelated that he seems to be discussing four different phenomena. In his retelling of an old story, he names an Indian woman Yarico, who helped a mercenary Englishman, Thomas Inkle during an ambush, and was betrayed by being sold into slavery as soon as the ungrateful Thomas got the chance. Yarico is a mythical creature, a child of nature living in a magical cave who bears no relation to the correctly socialised ladies of the 17th century. We know this because she has had many lovers, which puts her outside normal conventions. She stands as an archetype for a generous Nature, despoiled by human greed.
During his voyage to Barbados, Ligon meets an African woman who strikes him as very attractive and therefore as pa otential sexual partner, though he's not so crude as to put it that way. She is as exotic as the wild Yarico, but grounded in real time. This woman can be respected on account of her status as mistress of a white man, their host, and Ligon even flirts a bit, though if there was more than this, it is not recorded. The encounter segues into a meeting with some African 'virgins' aged about 15, whom he describes in great detail and with respect. These are the only only women in relation to whom he describes any emotional engagement, being quite enthralled by their charms, but the amount of detail he uses suggests that he is already thinking of them as specimens.
The very visual description of these Virgins is later applied to the enslaved women on the plantation. Ligon again approaches them with scientific detachment, since they are yet another class of female, possessing neither beauty, charm or status of any kind. Ligon gives a careful description of them, with particular attention given to their large breasts, which droop alarmingly as time goes on and one baby follows another. I have no doubt that if lower-class women walked about London with their tops off, Ligon, with his artist's focus on the visual, would have no compunction in describing them in detail. They are objects, and Ligon humanises them only as mothers, describing the pleasure they take from carrying their happy children on their backs as they stoop to pluck weeds.
Finally, when Ligon's voyage is almost over, he recounts, almost as an afterthought, how a 'little virgin' saves them, spinning thread to mend the destroyed sails on their ship. She is not described, because she is no curiosity at all. Everyone knows what a little virgin is like. Yet she is the midwife who delivers them to safety and to their homes, so familiar that anyone can imagine her, the very soul of home, useful, humble and essential.
Richard Ligon is a good companion. He's open-minded, curious and creates a fine word-picture. His book has become on of the key sources for 17th century colonial studies. He marvels at the natural world and effectively shares his wonderment. He's proficient in many of the arts. He's obviously an excellent cook because having described the flora and fauna around him, he also tells one how to cook and serve them. (Not including the Negros, obviously). His spelling is a charm and a delight. One reviewer wrote 'Ligon found beauty not only in places and people, but in living itself.'
Nevertheless, and despite his many talents, Richard Ligon was a serial loser. He did get out of jail, and his book was published a few years later. He lived out his old age in poverty, but he left a marvellous legacy, a book which can only enrich whoever reads it.
June 29, 2012
the first account of the island of barbados is a new edition editing by Karen Ordahl Kupperman of the original 1657. ligon discusses life on the island as the sugar culture is just getting started; describing masters and slaves at work and rest, the various flora and fauna to be found, illness, housing, consumption of food, treatment of servants and a full survey of sugar making in all of its grand detail. ligon is a very interesting fellow who of his own accord and being a royalist at the time of turnover was strongly urged to go abroad. he was from a very prominent family but not a first son so inheriting any substantial estate was out of the question. he stayed in barbados for three years compiling notes for this book and upon returning to london finisihed it in jail..........
November 22, 2022
Although his writing is rather sexist and racist (as is usual for this time), Ligon provides an interesting account of early colonial Barbados and the sugar plantations. Of course, others have argued that Ligion is not trying to be racist, but rather engages with the ideas of racism in this book in ways that were acceptable for this time. In any case, he does give intriguing descriptions of the flora, fauna, and people on Barbados in the seventeenth century.
December 6, 2022
More of a reference book than an actual book - detailed descriptions of fauna / flora / sugar making process and what goes into running a plantation
October 14, 2025
It was fine....
Just fine
Just fine
Read
October 28, 2014Another completely unrateable book. It's interesting from a historical perspective in the sense of what an English explorer found important on a visit to Barbados before it became a large sugar producer. It would be a good book to read in tandem with other Caribbean works from this period.
November 13, 2023
white man colonizing pizza sheet, historically interesting
April 20, 2017
Pineapples. And exploitation...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews