The Ladson family got its start on the path of infamy in Barbados when John Ladson immigrated from England in the mid-1600s. In 1679, John was among the first settlers in the new Carolina Colony, where he bought a plantation outside of Charleston, which the city has long since grown to encompass. At the time, Barbados was a major stopover point for the slave trade, and it was here that the Ladsons enjoyed their first taste of blood and money.
Barbados was the first British slave society. The beautiful Caribbean island was ruthlessly exploited for its natural wealth when it came under British control starting in 1630. Frequent slave raiding, disease, and intentional policies of genocide from the Spanish before them had exterminated the indigenous Arawak people, leaving the island ripe for repopulation by slaves. Its warm climate and fertile soil made it perfect for growing tobacco and sugarcane, which was then distilled into rum and sold throughout the world.
By 1636, laws were implemented ensuring that all Africans brought to the island and their descendants would be permanent chattel, with no provision to be freed. In 1661, the slave codes were strengthened, deeming all slaves to be real estate, alive for the sole purpose of creating value for their owners. Slaves were considered property first and human beings a distant second, if at all. The rules existed to protect the value of slaves as property, not their lives or dignity.
From 1630 to 1807, some 380,000 Africans were kidnapped from their homes, put in chains, and shipped to Barbados to be worked until they died. Untold thousands of those were sold by the Ladsons to plantations all over the hemisphere and their deaths and suffering made the family tremendously wealthy.
The slaves in Barbados suffered unimaginable brutality at the hands of slave masters like the Ladsons. From 1705 to 1735, the number of slaves imported into Barbados, in addition to those born there was roughly 85,000. However, due to the extreme mortality rate on the island, the total population increased by only 4,000.
Slave revolts, refusal to accept Christianity, or any acts of defiance from the chattel were put down with the absolute maximum amount of violence to serve as an example for the rest of the slaves. This torture and butchery were so common that most instances were never recorded but, in some cases, we have firsthand accounts of the brutality. One of these is from the diary of Father Antoine Biet, a French priest and missionary in 1654.
“They treat their Negro slaves with a great deal of severity. If some go beyond the limits of the plantation on a Sunday they are given fifty blows with a cudgel; these often bruise them severely. If they commit some other slightly more serious offense they are beaten to excess, sometimes up to the point of applying a firebrand all over their bodies which makes them shriek with despair. I saw a poor Negro woman, perhaps thirty-five or forty years old, whose body was full of scars which she claimed had been caused by her master’s having applied the fire-brand to her: this horrified me. As these poor unfortunates are very badly fed, a few occasionally escape during the night and go to steal a pig or something similar from a neighbouring plantation. But, if they are discovered, there is no forgiving them. One day I went to visit my Irishman. He had in irons one of these poor Negroes who had stolen a pig. Every day, his hands in irons, the overseer had him whipped by the other Negroes until he was all covered with blood. The overseer, after having had him treated thus for seven or eight days, cut off one of his ears, had it roasted, and forced him to eat it.”
https://cynthiachung.substack.com/i/106588659/the-dixie-rose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ladson#
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