Barbados Early Slave Trade

Topic: Gullah History
Slavery existed before the settlement of Barbados.  Africans arrived on the first ship of settlers that landed on the island in 1627. [1]  When Henry Hawley was reappointed governor in 1636, after the island’s proprietor, James Hay died, he declared all Africans and Native Americans on the island were slaves for life. [2]  Thus, before the island had a successful commercial crop, it had established mores.

Information on the number of slaves on Barbados before 1645 is unreliable.  Demographic statistics are maintained by governments as ways to collect money through taxation.  Most of the men Hay or his estate sent as governors paid more attention to the plantations they acquired than to Hay’s interest.  After he died, an agent for his trust found Hawley should have collected 72,000 pounds of commodities for taxes, but only collected 22,909.  After deducting expenses, the financially strapped trustees received 11,000. [3]

One particularly egregious example was what Hilary Beckles called Hawley’s land racket.  He overstated the number of indentured servants eligible for ten acres of land at the end of their contracts, then kept the land for himself and his brother.  Hawley gained 2,000 acres this way, of which he sold 430 to William Hilliard. [4]  In another questionable transaction, he sold 4,500 to Hilliard’s brother-in-law, Francis Skeete. [5]

Only two numbers exist for the numbers of slaves.  John Scott, who arrived on the island around 1667, [6] claimed there were 6,000 in 1643. [7]  George Downing visited the island in 1645, and wrote his cousin, John Winthrop, [8] that he thought planters on Barbados had “bought this year no less than a thousand Negroes.” [9]  As mentioned in the post for 31 October 2021, many think Scott is unreliable.  Hugh Thomas calls Downing “a villainous individual.” [10]

Information on the sources for slaves is equally fragmentary.  Thanks to Pope Alexander VI’s bull of 1493, Spain controlled everything west of a line through eastern Brazil, and Portugal everything to the east. [11]  Thus, the Portuguese maintained their monopoly for Africa.

The Portuguese first interest was the gold mentioned in the post for 24 March 2019.  Its first permanent installation was at El Mina on the coast of what today is Ghana. [12]  Independent Dutch, English, and French traders were out-competing them by the 1520s because they had better manufactured goods to swap at lower costs to themselves. [13]

Spain stimulated the slave trade in the New World for its mines and farms, [14] and used Portuguese suppliers, especially after it took control of that country in 1581.  The Dutch responded by building its own forts on the Ghanian shore in 1611. [15]  By 1617, it controlled Gorée island off the coast of Sénégal. [16]  As Portugal lost control of its western Africa posts, it depended more upon Angola.  By 1621, when the Pilgrims had been at Plymouth for just a year, more than 50% of the slaves were shipped from western Central Africa. [17]

The Thirty-Years War began in 1618, and the Twelve-Year Truce between Spain and the Netherlands expired in 1621. [18]  Since Portugal then was controlled by Spain, the Dutch began attacking its trade.  They took over Gorée in 1621 [19] and El Mina in 1637. [20]  In 1641, the Dutch extended their monopoly to São Tomé [21] and Angola. [22]

In the Caribbean, the Dutch organized the West India Company to “centralize privateering” on Portuguese ships carrying slaves. [23]  Other ships simply preyed where they could.  The first slaves on Barbados, brought by Henry Powell, were seized en route to the island. [24]

Charles I granted a monopoly on the slave trade along the Guinea Coast in 1630 to a group headed by Nicholas Crisp.  [25]  When it failed in 1644, thirteen Barbados planters owed it cotton they had promised to pay for slaves.  The governor, Philip Bell, was the largest debtor. [26]

Crisp already was complaining, in 1637, that interlopers were harming his business. [27]  Winthrop noted in 1645 that some Boston merchants shipped pipe staves to the Canary Islands, then picked up some “Africoes” from the Cape Verde Islands, which they exchanged for sugar and tobacco in Barbados. [28]  The ship that brought Richard Ligon in 1647 carried a supply of goods to trade for cattle, horses, and slaves at Cape Verde. [29]

Russell Menard has more details on one ship that arrived in 1644 with 251 slaves.  The captain gave Bell seven.  Eighteen planters bought one or two, fifteen bought three to nine, and six bought ten.  The largest sales were lots of twelve, thirty, and thirty-four, [30] with the last two going to Hilliard and James Drax. [31]

The source of the Africans is not known, but in October 1642, the Mary Bonaventure had been hired by the English navy. [32]  In 1644, Robert Rich, [33] then with the navy, authorized the captain, George Richardson, [34] to seize “ships belonging to the Irish rebels or to any port in England hostile to parliament.” [35]  Legitimate trade and privateering often were one and the same.

End Notes
1.  N. Darnell Davis.  Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados.  Georgetown, British Guiana: Argosy Press, 1887.  28, 37.

2.  John Scott.  “Descriptions of Guiana, Tobago, and Barbados.”  British Museum, Sloane mss 3662.  Cited by Davis.  67.

3.  Larry Gragg.  Englishmen Transplanted: The English colonization of Barbados, 1627–1660.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.  38.

4.  Hilary MacDonald Beckles.  “White Labour in Black Slave Plantation Society and Economy: A Case Study of Indentured Labour in Seventeenth Century Barbados.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Hull, August 1980.  250–251.

5.  “Golden Grove House History.”  Golden Grove House, Barbados, website, 8 September 2014.  The committee reviewing Hawley’s activities found at least part of this sale legitimate.

6.  For more on Scott, see the post for 31 October 2021.

7.  William A Green.  “Race and Slavery: Considerations on the Williams Thesis.  25–50 in British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams, edited by Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engerman.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.  38.  Many quote this number, but Green is one of the few who identify the source.

8.  Hugh Thomas.  The Slave Trade.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.  196.

9.  George Downing, Newfoundland.  Letter to John Winthrop, Jr., 26 August 1645.  Quoted by Bernard Bailyn.  The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century.  Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1955.  85.

10.  Thomas.  197.
11.  “Inter caetera.”  Wikipedia website.

12.  T. C. McCaskie.  “The Beginnings of European Activity.”  Encyclopædia Britannica website, 24 August 1998; last updated 6 October 2020.

13.  M. Malowist.  “The Struggle for International Trade and Its Implications for Africa.” 1–22 in Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century.  Edited by B. A. Ogot.  Paris: UNESCO, 1992.  6.

14.  Thomas.  182.
15.  Malowist.  12.
16.  Malowist.  12.

17.  John K. Thornton.  “The Kingdom of Kongo and the Thirty Years’ War.”  Journal of World History  27(2):189–213:June 2016.  202.

18.  The Thirty-Years War is mentioned in the posts for 7 November 2021 and 9 January 2022.  The truce is mentioned in the post for 31 October 2021.

19.  C. Wondji.  “The States and Cultures of the Upper Guinean Coast.”  368–398 in Ogot.  386.

20.  “Elmina Castle.”  Wikipedia website.
21.  Hughes.  185.
22.  Thornton.  193.
23.  Thornton.  192.
24.  Davis.  25.
25.  Thomas.  175.

26.  Michael D. Bennett.  “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Sheffield, June 2020.  202.

27.  Thomas.  175.

28.  John Winthrop.  "Journal," edited by James Kendall Hosmer as Winthrop’s Journal “History of New England” 1630–1649.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908. 2:227, entry for 13 April 1645.  This was brought to my attention by Bailyn on page 85 and note 29.

29.  Richard Ligon.  A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes.  London: Peter Parker, 1673.  2.  They only managed to acquire cattle and horses, both of which were considered contraband by the Portuguese (page 18).

30.  Russell R. Menard.  Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.  63.  His source was recopied deed books in the Barbados National Archives.

31.  Bennett.  202.  Drax is mentioned in the posts for 17 January 2022 and 23 January 2022.

32.  Calendar of State Papers: Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I, 1641-1643, edited by William Douglas Hamilton.  London: published for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1887.  402, item 40.

33.  Rich is mentioned in note 31 of the post for 7 November 2021 as working with Hay’s heir to overturn the trust.

34.  Menard calls the ship the Marie Bonaventure, but names Richardson as ship master.

35.  “Warrant from Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, Lord High Admiral etc., to Captain George Richardson.”  United Kingdom National Archives website, C8671805.

Barbados White Labor

Topic: Gullah History
The capacity of mills determined the profitability of sugar operations on Barbados.  If a planter produced more cane than his mill could handle, the excess was a loss.  If he did not grow enough, he would have been dependent on others to supply cane whose quality was not assured.  Drax initially “persuaded a number of smallholders nearby to grow canes for his mill.”  However, not everyone was as scientific as he, and they sent cane of different qualities.  In chemistry, that matters.  Matthew Parker said “they made a mess of it.” [1]

This led to an important concept that was transferred to South Carolina, the belief there was an optimal size for a plantation. [2]  Men calculated how many acres it would take to produce the ideal amount of cane for their mills.  Land consolidation, which already had begun, accelerated.

The harvest period was compressed by the requirements of sugar.  The most profitable time to cut cane stalks was when they held the most sugar.  Given the plants dependence on the sun, that ideal time was relatively short. [3]  As soon as canes were cut, they began to rot.  This quickly led to fermentation. [4]

Next, planters figured out how much labor they needed during the harvest season.  The mill and the boiling house ran continuously, so men had to keep cutting cane and bringing wood for the boilers.

The need for firewood led to cutting trees in the inland.  This, in turn, opened more land for cultivation.  The planting period was as compressed as the harvesting.  If the canes were all to ripen at the same time, they had to be planted at the same time.

Weeds flourished in newly planted cane fields.  In Brazil, weeding was “as labor intensive as planting, and an activity that required as much labor as the cutting and carting of cane combined.” [5]  Many of the invasive plants on Barbados were brought from Europe. [6]

The only work that required some skill was in the boiling house.  The rest was manual labor done by groups working under threats of beatings. [7]  The need to extract as much effort as possible in peak periods deadened the senses of planters and their overseers.  Richard Ligon was shocked by the level of cruelty he saw in some places in the late 1640s. [8]

Laborers still were imported from England as indentured servants.  As soon as their contracts expired, they could and did leave.  This meant planters not only had to acquire new labor in the first years of their operations, but then had to pay for both new workers and replacements.

Alison Grimes suggests the first round of terminations occurred in 1640, during a year when the cotton crop had done poorly and many faced starvation.  Peter Hay, the agent for James Hay’s estate, reported many of the newly freed men were leaving for Trinidad. [9]  This was the year when Thomas Verney asked his father to send men from a prison in England.  As mentioned in the post for 9 January 2022, he probably wanted to resell their contracts.

By then, James Hay’s son was feuding with the estate’s trustees; [10] he could not assume his property until all his father’s debts were paid. [11]  In 1641, he sent Philip Bell to govern the island with instructions to “sell the land in large units to the colonists in return for a quit rent of forty pounds of tobacco annually.”  While this accelerated the aggrandizement of plantations, it also “reduced the possibility of men without substantial sums of capital becoming landholders.” [12]

At the same time, planters were increasing their demands for labor and failing to retain the help of men freed from their indentures, the labor supply from England may have been disrupted.  In August 1642, conflict between Charles I and Parliament broke into open hostilities with both sides recruiting young men for their armies.  In London, the war seems to have drained the pool of apprentices who were the same age as indentured servants. [13]  John Winthrop said servants stopped coming to Boston, where the price of labor rose. [14]

Whenever a gap opens between supply and demand, black markets develop. By its very nature, the number of youth kidnapped in London for sale on Barbardos is not known.  By 9 May 1645, it must have reached a new high because Parliament ordered ships be searched. [15]  However, the act had little effect.  As Anna Suranyi suggests, too many people with influence made money on the trade. The actual spiriters, who captured the youth, might be fined but the owners of ships that carried them were not. [16]

James Drax’ great success with his sugar crop in 1645, which coincided with a drop in sugar exports from Brazil, [17] led to an expansion of cane production on Barbados.  The first crops probably were processed in 1646.  This is when the Island turned to convict labor.

The first months of the year were marked by defeats of Charles’ forces in England, with royal garrisons surrendering in Dartmouth on January 18, in Chester on February 3, and in Cornwall on March 10. [18]  On March 20, the House of Lords agreed to accept an offer from William Fortescue to take prisoners from Winchester Prison to Barbados.  Fortescue, who was described as a “Gentleman of Quality,” offered “good Security.” [19]

When Ligon sailed from England in 1647, he noticed his ship carried men educated at Bridewell and Turnball Street. [20]  Since Turnball was a London area known for its criminal activity, [21] these may not have been prisoners but people who had been kidnapped and sold to ships bound for Barbados. [22] The illicit trade increased when more land was put into production.

Unrelenting demands for hard labor by indentured and involuntary servants had the expected affect.  Just before Ligon arrived on the island, someone betrayed a plot to kill planters and take over the island. [23]  More devious ways of passive resistence were more common by the “carelessness and slothfulness of retched servants.” [24]  While he was there, two plantations were destroyed by fires. [25]

Hilary Beckles notes the more common forms of resistence were running way [26] and emigration when indentures were completed. [27]  However, he said they did not move to mainland colonies.  In 1671, Carolina made clear it only wanted planters, not the ones who “serve only to fill up numbers and live upon us.” [28]

Instead, promoters of sugar plantations on other Caribbean islands recruited them.  Hay’s son was forced to sign away his last remaining rights on Barbados to a creditor on 17 February 1647. [29]  In November, the man responsible for promoting large plantations, offered land on other islands he still controlled because land prices were “too high for the purchase of poor servants.” [30]

End Notes
1.  Matthew Parker.  The Sugar Barons.  New York: Walker and Company, 2011.  34.

2.  Hilary Beckles.  A History of Barbados.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.  23.  He notes that, while many plantations created by combining smaller ones, the larger properties were being subdivided “into more manageable unites of 300–500 acres.”

3.  Russell Menard suggests they eventually were able to extend the harvest season over a long period, but he does not give dates.  His book covers both the 1600s and 1700s. [31]

4.  George Richardson Porter.  The Nature and Property of the Sugar Cane.  London: Smith, Elder, and Company, 1831.  220.

5.  Jason W. Moore.  “Madeira, Sugar, and the Conquest of Nature in the ‘First’ Sixteenth Century: Part I: From ‘Island of Timber’ to Sugar Revolution, 1420–1506.”  Fernand Braudel Center Review 32:345–390:2009.  372.

6.  J. R. McNeill.  Mosquito Empires.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.  28.

7.  Richard Ligon.  A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes.  London: Peter Parker, 1673.  44.

8.  Ligon.  44.  The full quotation is: “Truly, I have seen such cruelty there done to servants, as I did not think one Christian could have done to another.” (“Truly, I have fecn fuch cruelty there done to Servants, as I did not think one Chriftian could have done to another.”)

9.  Alison Games.  Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999.  125.

10.  Robert W. Baird.  “Peter Hay the Envoy.”  Gen Files website.

11.  J. Harry Bennett.  “Peter Hay, Proprietary Agent in Barbados, 1636-1641.”  Jamaican Historical Review 5(2):9:1 November 1965.

12.  Hilary MacDonald Beckles.  “White Labour in Black Slave Plantation Society and Economy: A Case Study of Indentured Labour in Seventeenth Century Barbados.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Hull, August 1980.  15.

13.  Ben Coates.  “The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642-1650.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Leicester, June 1997.  He notes numbers varied by trade, but there was a general drop between 1642 and 1643.  He also notes few complained about a lack of labor.  This led him to think general business activity had declined, which led to the drop in taking on apprentices.

14.  John Winthrop.  Winthrop’s Journal “History of New England”, 1630-1649, edited by J. K. Hosmer.  New York: Scribner, 1908.  II:228.  This was brought to my attention by Abbot Emerson Smith.  Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America 1607–1776.  University of North Carolina Press, 1947.  29.

15.  C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait.  Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660.  London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911.  681, probably in volume 1.  Cited by Anna Suranyi.  “Indenture, Transportation, and Spiriting: Seventeenth Century English Penal Policy and ‘Superfluous’ Populations.”  In Building the Atlantic Empires, edited by John Donoghue and Evelyn P. Jennings.  Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1 January 2016.  153.

16.  Suranyi.  153.

17.  The post for 17 January 2022 has more on Drax and the introduction of sugar in Barbados.

18.  “Timeline of the English Civil War.”  Wikipedia website.

19.  House of Lords Journal, volume 8: 20 March 1646; reprinted in 1802 as Journal of the House of Lords, volume 8, 1645-1647, pages 222–224. [32]  Beckles claims the first shipment arrived in 1642, [33] but this was impossible.  The House of Commons voted to establish the prison in the Bishop of Winchester’s palace, south of London, in November 1642, and appointed Thomas Devenish as keeper in December 1642. [34]

20.  Ligon.  13. [35]  He describes an incident where some men and women left the ship to do laundry and attracted the attention of locals. [36]  They were rude, but Ligon did not think they did more because the men were “from Bridewell and Turnball Street, and such like places of education, were better natured than to suffer such violence.” [37]  Bridewell has been established as the first workhouse to train unemployed youth in 1555.  By Ligon’s time it had become the generic name for a jail. [38]

21.  “Turnmill Street.”  Wikipedia website.

22.  Smith says the Spirits, as kidnappers were called, maintained depots in “less reputable sections of London, especially on St. Katherine’s near the Tower” where kidnappers brought their victims to await ships. [39]  Bridewell was in St. Katherine’s.

23.  Ligon.  46.

24.  Ligon.  45.  The full quotation is: “the love of the servants there, is of much concern to the masters, not only in their diligent and painful labor, but in foreseeing and preventing mischiefs that often happen by the carelessness and slothfulness of retched servants; sometimes by laying fire so negligently as whole lands of canes and houses too are burned down and consumed to the utter ruin and undoing of their masters.” (“the love of the fervants there, is of much concernment to the Mafters, not only in their diligent and painful labour, but in fore-feeing and preventing mifchiefs that often happen; by the careleffnefs and flothfulnefs of retchlefs fervants; fometimes by laying fire fo negligently, as whole lands of Canes and Houfcs too are burnt down and confumed, to the utter ruine and undoing of their Mafters.”)

25.  Ligon.  45.  The destructive fires were on the lands of James Holdip and Constantine Silvester.  Silvester is discussed in the post for 27 March 2022.

26.  Beckles, Labour.  234–235.
27.  Beckles, Labour.  291–292.

28.  Lord Ashley.  Letter to Sir John Yeamans, 15 December, 1671.  In Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series.  Volume 7, America and West Indies, 1669-1674, edited by W. Noël Sainsbury.  London: published for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1889.  295.  Quoted by Beckles, Labour.  299.  Ashley is Anthony Ashley Cooper.

29.  N. Darnell Davis.  Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados.  Georgetown, British Guiana: Argosy Press, 1887.  138.  “The Deed of Demise from the Earl of Carlisle [40] to Lord Willoughby [41] is dated 17th Feby., 1646-47” [42] and is located at Trinity College, Dublin, mss. G. 4. 15.

30.  “The Proclamation of the Earl of Carlisle [43] (Proprietor) Offering Barbadian Servants Land in the Leeward Islands, 22 November 1647.”  Reprinted by Beckles, Labour.  309.  The original is in the British Library, Thomasson Tracts, 669; 11, (115).

31.  Russell R. Menard.  Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.

32.  Quoted by Michael Russell.  “Thomas DEVENISH (c1589 - Aft 1638).”  Fordington Dorset section of Roots Web website, March 2009.

33.  Beckles, Labour.  96.
34.  Russell.
35.  Beckles, Labour, brought this to my attention on page 97.

36.  Smith said landing women to do the laundry was common, but gave no source (page 65).

37.  The original is: “from Bridewel, Turnball ftreet, and fuch like places of education, vvere better natur’d than to fuffer fuch violence.”

38.  “Bridewell Palace.”  Wikipedia website.  Smith notes records are sparse, but believes the number of scattered references “make plain that Bridewell was in fact a source of supply for the servant trade” (page 140).

39.  Smith.  69.
40.  Carlisle is James Hay, Jr.
41.  Willoughby is Francis Willoughby.

42.  England had not yet moved the New Year to January 1, and so actions in February carried both the Julian (1646) and the Gregorian (1647) years.

43.  Carlisle is James Hay, Jr.

Barbados Sugar~

Topic: Gullah History
The decline in cotton prices in Barbados, mentioned in the post for 9 January 2022, sent some planters looking for other commercial crops.  Ginger and indigo were tried, but the only important result of the latter was the introduction of the idea that a planter had to become a processor as well as grower. [1]  The market was too small to justify the expense. [2]

Our knowledge of the introduction of sugar is sketchy.  What began as simple statements in early reports became legends as actions and motives were ascribed to actors.

The earliest report was made by Richard Ligon, who lived on the island from 1647 to 1650.  He heard unnamed men acquired plants from Pernambuco, an area where the Portuguese introduced sugar cane in Brazil.  He simply mentioned their most important attribute: there were industrious. [3]

John Scott arrived in Barbados in 1665 [4] and wrote an account of the island in 1667.  He denied human agency, and believed cane was “brought from Brazil ‘by an accident’ a few years before” 1641. [5]  Richard Dutton, the governor of the island between 1680 and 1685, made a note in Scott’s manuscript that Pieter Brower introduced the first canes in 1637. [6]

A couple generations later, legend filled in the missing details.  William Duke [7] believed James Holdip “obtained some canes from a Dutch slave ship.”  Once he succeeded, he “helped his neighbors to start cane fields of their own.” [8]

The differences between Scott and Duke, on the one hand, and Ligon are more than views of the ideal behavior of heroes.  The one represents the theologically ordained Medieval world where individuals in the hierarchy incurred obligations in return for being granted wealth. [9]  The other was part of the emerging modern world that reward effort, often based on understanding the ways of the natural world.

As mentioned in the post for 31 October 2021, the names of the pioneers only interest historians.  The important person is the innovator who succeeds with a crop.  There is no debate that person was James Drax.  He arrived with Henry Powell in 1627, [10] and accumulated capital growing tobacco and cotton.  When prices fell in 1639, he would have had the resources to experiment with an alternative crop. [11]

The critical date seems to be 1643 when a representative of James Hay’s son informed him one man on Barbados had shipped seventy chests of sugar. [12]  From that, one can construct a preliminary chronology based on the growth cycle of the crop.

Sugar cane is grown from buried stem pieces, [13] so Drax had to have obtained cane plants, not seeds.  Saccharum officinarum has the photosynthesis pattern typical of tropical grasses, rather than the one used by the majority of plants. [14]  The length to maturity depends on the closeness to the equator.  Thus, on Madeira it takes nearly two years for canes to produce, but only fourteen to eighteen months in Brazil. [15]  Ligon said planters first treated sugar plants as annuals and cut the canes after twelve months.  They learned from observation, and probably some trial and error, to wait until cane sprouts were fifteen months old. [16]

If Drax first shipped year-old sugar in October 1643, he began planting by 1642.  If he could not ship until he discovered the optimal time for harvest, and if that only took one iteration, he had to have begun planting cane by 1640.

As it grows, sugar molecules accumulate in water in the stems.  Producing a shippable product involves crushing the stems, then heating the extract for several days.  Periodically, impurities are removed, which allows the chemical processes to accelerate until the sugar molecules begin to crystalize.  Then they are put into clay containers to allow the remaining liquid to escape. [17]  This crystallization phase requires laborers who learn from experience to judge when to act.

The quality of the raw sugar varied.  In the early years, the high molasses content may not have mattered.  The early 1640s were a period of uncertainty in the sugar industry.  It had been stable in 1550 when Brazil, a colony of Portugal, began growing sugar cane. [18]  The raw sugar was shipped on Dutch ships [19] to Antwerp for refining. [20]

Chaos was introduced by Philip II of Spain.  First, as part of his attempt to put down the Protestant rebellion in the north, he destroyed Antwerp in 1576.  Amsterdam built its first sugar refinery in 1577. [21]  Then, through rules of succession, Philip gained control of the Portuguese throne in 1580.  To protect its refining interests from the Spanish, the Dutch took control of the sugar growing region in Brazil in 1630. [22]

The Portuguese revolt against Spain in 1640 lead to war that lasted until 1668. [23]  Dutch merchants no doubt recognized they no longer were useful to the Portuguese in Brazil and may have begun looking for other sources of sugar. [24]  Duke believed Drax “brought the model of a sugar-mill and some coppers from Holland” in the early 1640s. [25]

In 1645, the Portuguese rebelled against the Dutch in Brazil.  Matthew Parker says that led to “widespread destruction of cane-fields and mills” and production “was stopped for a year.” [26] This is the year Drax was “adjudged to have made a fortune.” [27]

At that point, Amsterdam refineries would have made more demands upon the planters in Barbados. Scott recalled the Dutch managed the trade and supplied the more sober residents with Negroes, “coppers, stills and all other things” needed to produce sugar. [28]  Dutton added sugar production “came to no considerable perfection till the year 1645, and so forward to the year 1652 at which time the Dutch by the great credit they gave the planters brought the island to its utmost perfection.” [29]

Once Drax proved he could produce raw sugar that brought premium prices, the introduction of the crop on Barbados entered the third phase when men imitate success.  In this case, Michael Bennett says London merchants began investing in plantations.  Between 1640 and 1650 they purchased interests in 5,739 acres.  They wanted more than high returns that came from the temporary disruption in the supply of sugar from Brazil.  They were looking for security while Civil War was raging in England.  84% of the land purchases were made between 1643 and 1648. [30]

End Notes
1.  The post for 13 January 2019 describes the difficulties Eliza Lucas encountered learning to process indigo in South Carolina in the 1740s.

2.  As mentioned in the post for 19 May 2019, demand for indigo did not develop in England until the 1730s.

3.  Richard Ligon.  A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes.  London: Peter Parker, 1673.  85.  The original is: “Some of the moft induftrious men, having gotten Plants from Fernambock, a place in Brafil, and made tryal of them at the Barbadoes, and finding them to grow, they planted more and more.”

4.  “Captain John Scott.”  Wikipedia website.  Scott is mentioned in the post for 31 October 2021.

5.  John Scott.  “Descriptions of Guiana, Tobago, and Barbados.”  British Museum, Sloane mss 3662.  Quotation from N. Darnell Davis.  Cavaliers and Roundheads in Barbados.  Georgetown, British Guiana: Argosy Press, 1887.  69.

6.  Davis.  69.  “The Description of Barbados in this manuscript is by John Scott. There is a supplementary notice of the Island, apparently by Sir William Dutton, at one time Governor
there.” [31]  George Edmundson speculated that Brower left Barbados when Parliament, under Oliver Cromwell, proscribed products from the island because it was controlled by followers of the deposed Stuarts.  A place name in Guyana, Browershoek, suggested he moved to the Wild Coast. [32]

7.  William Duke.  Some Memoirs of the First Settlement of the Island of Barbados.  Barbados: Wm. Beeby, 1741.  His sources are William Arnold, who came for William Courteen in 1627; [33] and Samuel Bulkly and John Summers, who arrived for Hay in 1628. [34]  Courteen is introduced in the post for 31 October 2021.  Hay is introduced in the post for 7 November 2021.

8.  Richard S. Dunn.  Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972.  62.  Quotations are from Dunn.  Robert Schomburgk has “Captain James Holdip planted the first sugar-canes in Barbados, which he got from a ship from Guinea.”  He indicates the information appeared in the appendix of Duke’s collection of memoirs. [35]  Dunn combines two accounts, and his notes only identify Duke.  The original is not available online or through the usual online used-book sellers.

9.  This was alluded to in the post for 7 November 2021, which mentioned William I made temporary land grants in exchange for military service.

10.  Matthew Parker.  The Sugar Barons.  New York: Walker and Company, 2011.  15.  Powell is mentioned in the post for 31 October 2021.

11.  David Watts.  The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.  182.

12.  Thomas Robinson at St Christophers.  Letter to Thomas Chappell, secretary to James, Earl of Carlisle, 24 October 1643.  Cited by Michael D. Bennett.  “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Sheffield, June 2020.  113.  The original is: “this shippe is laden with 70tie cheists of sugar all of one mans p[ro]duce.”

13.  Elizabeth Vaughan.  “Louisiana Sugar: A Geohistorical Perspective.”  PhD dissertation.  Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, May 2003.  60.  Ligon describes the process on page 88.

14.  Vaughan.  48.  Normal C3 photosynthesis fixes carbon in three molecules, while tropical C4 used four to reduce evaporation in hot climates. [36]

15.  Jason W. Moore.  “Madeira, Sugar, and the Conquest of Nature in the ‘First’ Sixteenth Century: Part I: From ‘Island of Timber’ to Sugar Revolution, 1420–1506.”  Fernand Braudel Center Review 32:345–390:2009.  374.

16.  Ligon.  85.
17.  Vaughan.  Chapter 3, “Sugar and Sugar Cane.”

18.  Matthew Edel.  “The Brazilian Sugar Cycle of the Seventeenth Century and the Rise of West Indian Competition.”  Caribbean Studies 9:24–44:April 1969.  27.

19.  Hugh Thomas.  The Slave Trade.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.  159.
20.  Edel.  27.
21.  Edel.  27.
22.  Dunn.  61.

23.  “Portuguese Restoration War.”  Wikipedia website.  Spain then was ruled by Phillip IV, grandson of Phillip II.

24.  Edel applies modern economic models to explain “why the Dutch would have had incentive to introduce sugar to Barbados, even during the period of their secure control of Pernambuco.”  Russell Menard believes the Dutch East India Company began promoting sugar crops in Asia, and that the harvests were beginning to arrive in Amsterdam. [37]

25.  Duke.  Cited by Robert H. Schomburgk.  The History of Barbados.  London: Longman, 1848.  143.

26.  Porter.  34.

27.  Edel 1.  30.  He noted sugar exports from Pernambuco dropped more than 60% between 1645 and 1646.

28.  Scott.  Quoted by Watts.  188.  Bennett notes historians have not found much evidence to support Dutch involvement after 1645. [38]  Christian Koot believes planters stressed the role of the Dutch after Oliver Cromwell passed the first Navigation Act in 1651 to limit shipping to  English carriers. [39]

29.  Dutton.  Quoted by George Edmundson.  “The Dutch in Western Guiana.”  English Historical Review 16:640–675:1901.  656.  The original is: “but came to no considerable perfection till the year 1645, and so forward to the year 1652 at which time the Dutch by the great credit they gave the planters brought the island to its utmost perfection.”

30.  Bennett.  127.
31.  Davis.  17.
32.  Edmundson.  656–657.
33.  Schomburgk.  259–260.
34.  Schomburgk.  221.
35.  Schomburgk.  143.
36.  “C4 Carbon Fixation.”  Wikipedia website.

37.  Russell R. Menard.  Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.  51.  His source is Neils Steensgaard.  “The Growth and Composition of the Long Distance Trade.”  102–152 in The Rise of Merchant Empires, edited by James D. Tracy.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1990.  I could not find any corroboration for this.

38.  Bennett.  3.

39.  Christian J. Koot.  “Anglo-Dutch Trade in the Chesapeake and the British Caribbean, 1621–1733.”  72–99 in Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680–1800, edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman.  Leiden: Brill, 2014.  85–86.

Barbados Cotton

Topic: Gullah History
The production capabilities of England’s New World colonies grew faster than the parent country’s ability to absorb their products.  London prices dropped in 1631 when tobacco flooded the market, [1] plunging small planters on Barbados into debt.

The suggestion planters change to cotton may have come from ships’ captains who, of course, knew best the prices that commodities were fetching in European ports, and often were closely allied with merchants.  An equally likely source was instructions from James Hays’ proprietors [2] to their agents.  Marmaduke Rawdon was apprenticed to a cloth merchant and joined the Guild of Clothworkers. [3]  One of his partners, William Perkins, was a merchant tailor. [4]

Edward Baines believes cotton then was used for wicks. [5]  As mentioned in the post for 19 May 2019 on cotton markets, the use of the fiber in textiles did not begin until Flanders refugees, like William Courteen’s father, [6] were permitted to settle in England on the condition that they not compete with the woollen industry.  Baines thinks cotton-cloth manufacturing began sometime after 1601. [7]

Raw cotton came from the Levant where England had developed relations in 1582 [8] and the Dutch in 1612. [9]  I do not know how much the Thirty-Years War disrupted shipping in the Mediterranean. [10]  Johannes Gerard van Dillen believes Dutch trade in the Mediterranean was less intense between 1620 and 1645. [11]  Similarly, Jonathan Israel thinks trade weakened between 1621 and 1647. [12]

A temporary disruption in the import of raw cotton from Syria at the time when the manufacture of cotton cloth just was beginning may have created an opportunity for Barbados planters.  It probably did not matter what variety of cotton was supplied, so long as it had been cleaned.

However, the particular species probably was Marie-Galante. [13]  Since this is a perennial that takes two years to produce its first flowers, that trait would explain two lags. [14]  In 1631, Henry Colt said planting cotton “fills them all with hope.” [15]  If that were the first year it was planted, the first crop would have been shipped in late 1632 and feedback on the seeds would not have been received until sometime in 1633.  In 1634, Larry Gragg found machines for cleaning cotton in plantation inventories. [16]

The second lag was the hesitancy of small planters to change from the annual tobacco.  In 1636, the heirs of Hay sent his nephew Peter to investigate the status of the estate. [17].  He wanted everyone to plant cotton. [18]  However, those in debt could not afford to plant a crop that would not produce a monetary return for two years, and continued with tobacco, even though they made little. [19]

This simple accident of botany led to the first real differentiation among economic classes.  The poor could not afford to change, and creditors were more willing to support those able to provide commodities that brought them, the creditors, the greatest profit.

Cotton is less labor intensive than tobacco.  It is more like wheat that needs attention when it is planted and when it is harvested.  It needs periodic weeding, but time is not crucial in either weeding or harvesting.  The perennial form needs even less work once it is established.  Thus, an individual could grow more cotton with the same labor.  And, even more important, the crop fetched twice the price. [20]

This allowed the planters to begin accumulating capital. [21]  The money first would be invested in land to more fully utilize existing labor, then more servants would be needed as the land in cultivation increased.  The population on the island more than doubled between 1632 and 1636, and doubled again before 1640. [22]

In Virginia, John Rolfe suggested people leave England in June to arrive in time for the September harvest.  In Barbados, Alison Games found three of the nine ships that arrived from London in 1635, left in April, and more sailed earlier [23] to arrive when work was needed clearing new land.

The number of indentured servants used by planters varied.  Hilary Beckles found Thomas Hethersell had seven for 100 acres in 1639, while James Holdip had 29 for 200 acres in 1643. [24]  In some cases, not all the land was in production and in others planters may have had surplus labor.  Keeping that in mind, the calculated average number of acres per servant in those years was 12.39. [25]

About 1632, the island faced a new labor problem.  Contracts of indentured servants began falling due.  The usual termination payment was ten pounds or 400 pounds of cotton [26]  Beckles has examined land ownership in the 1630s.  The average size of a grant between 1628 and 1630 was 235.7 acres.  From 1631, when the first indentured servants were freed, to 1638 it fell to 67.7 acres. [27]

Averages can mask disparities when two economic classes exist.  Beckles found fifty land sales that averaged 235.96 acres between 1630 and 1644. [28]  However, Larry Gragg says 62% of the sales involved 50 acres or less, and at least 6% were less than the 10 acres most use as a statistical threshold.  As he notes, such small land sales often went unrecorded to avoid legal fees. [29]

Games followed the lives of 935 men who entered the island as servants in 1635.  By 1640, 43% owned land, and 35% of the new land owners in 1640 were new servants in 1635.  Most purchased small lots with partners.  Using the above standard, two men could work 25 acres. While she believes partnerships provided a substitute for families in a society that was 90% male, [30] it also was the prevailing type of business in a period when permanent companies were rare.  David Sacks found that, while Bristol merchants used agents in other countries, they also entered partnerships, which were more like trading fellowships than business firms. [31]

With capital formation came speculation.  William Hilliard was a Southampton merchant who received a 600-acre grant from Hay’s estate in 1637, with the intent of sending servants.  Two years later he began buying and selling land to raise more money for his operations. [32]

Speculation in labor became obvious in 1638, when Thomas Verney arrived and acquired a hundred acres from the heirs of Hay. [33]  He wanted twenty servants, but some got sick and he had to auction others to pay debts.  Then, in 1640, he asked his father to send one hundred men from a local prison.  Beckles thinks he either needed more servants to pay debts, or wanted to begin selling their contracts to others. [34]

Beckles adds by then, planters “bought, sold, gambled away, mortgaged, taxed as property, and alienated in wills their indentured servants.” [35]  As he observes, this transformation of labor contracts into a commodity was an intellectual precondition for buying and selling human beings themselves as slaves.

Cotton prices dropped in 1639.  Beckles suggests other islands had begun growing cotton and the market was saturated; [36] even the price for raw cotton from Smyrna “fell by 50% between 1635 and 1641.” [37]  Given the choice, the first cotton manufacturing mill in Manchester purchased its raw materials from Cyprus and Smyrna. [38]

This probably was not just about price, or even preferences in trading with familiar suppliers.  Cotton from Smyrna was a different species.  One thing that distinguishes species is the nature of the fibers attached to seeds.  Baines says the spinning machines were too crude to handle fine yarn. [40]  The spinners and weavers in Manchester probably were using equipment designed for the Smyrna species and preferred working with what was familiar and succeeded best.

End Notes
1.  Hilary Beckles.  A History of Barbados.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.  13.

2.  Hay is introduced in the post for 7 November 2021.

3.  Richard Dace.  “‘Who lieth here?’ Sir Marmaduke Rawdon (1582-1646).”  Hastang website, May 2021.  For more on Rawdon, see the post on 14 November 2021.

4.  “The William Perkins Family.”  An American Family History website.  Perkins was one of Rawdon’s partners. [41]

5.  Edward Baines.  History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain.  London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1835.  97.  Jack Hutchinson thinks it possible cotton lint first was used in ancient India for lamp wicks, since it is attached to oil-bearing seeds. [42]

6.  Courteen is introduced in the post for 31 October 2021.
7.  Baines.  87.
8.  Baines.  98.

9.  Mehmet Bulut.  “The Role of the Ottomans and Dutch in the Commercial Integration between the Levant and Atlantic in the Seventeenth Century.”  Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45:197–230:2002.

10.  David Sacks says 50% of the Bristol vessels were individually owned, but it was down to 25% in 1629.  Merchants spread the risk during “war.”  England was neutral during the Thirty Years War, but not immune to what Sacks calls “maritime warfare that plagues these years.” [43]

11.  Johannes Gerard van Dillen.  Van rijkdom en regenten; Handboek tot de economische en sociale geschiedenis van Nederland tijdens de Republic.  The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1970.  Cited by Bulut.  214.

12.  Jonathan I. Israel.  Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.  Cited by Bulut.  214.

13.  J. B. Hutchinson and S. G. Stephens.  “The Evolution of the Species of ‘Gossypium’.”  54–80 in The Evolution Of Gossypium And The Differentiation Of The Cultivated Cottons, edited by Hutchinson, R. A. Silow, and Stephens.  London: Oxford University Press, 1947.

G. Ano and J. Schwendiman.  “Multi-Phase Collecting Missions for Cotton (I).”  United Nations, Food and Agricultural Organization Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter 54:2–6.  5.

The complete name is Gossypium hirsutum var. marie-galante.  It is a member of the Malvaceæ family.

14.  Gossypium cannot tolerate frost.  The Upland and Sea Islands cottons that are grown in the United States are annuals that produce flowers the year they are planted.

15.  Henry Colt.  “The Voyage of Sir Henrye Colt Knight to the Ilands of the Antilleas.”  Cambridge University Library MSS, Mm. 3, 9.  69 in Vincent T. Harlow.  Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies and Guiana, 1623-1667.  London: The Hakluyt Society, 1925; since reprinted.  Colt is mentioned in the posts for 14 November 2021 and 21 November 2021. The original is: “now ye trade of Cotton fills them all with hope.”

16.  Larry Gragg.  Englishmen Transplanted: The English Colonization of Barbados, 1627–1660.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.  94–97.  Cited by Michael D. Bennett.  “Merchant Capital and the Origins of the Barbados Sugar Boom, 1627-1672.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Sheffield, June 2020.  49.  The cited pages are missing from the online version of Gragg’s book and copies are prohibitively expensive.

17.  Beckles, History.  11.
18.  Beckles, History.  14.

19.  J. H.  Bennett.  “Peter Hay, Proprietary Agent in Barbados, 1636–1641.”  Jamaican Historical Review 5:9–30:1965.  16.  Cited by Jordan Goodman.  Tobacco in History.  London: Routledge, 1993.  No page numbers in on-line edition.

20.  Michael Bennett.  9.  In the 1640s, one pound of tobacco was worth 2 pence, while a pound of cotton brought 4 pence.  In the middle 1630s, cotton sold for 6 pence.  The exact numbers are less important that what economists would call the relative return on investment in land and labor.

21.  Hilary MacDonald Beckles.  “White Labour in Black Slave Plantation Society and Economy: A Case Study of Indentured Labour in Seventeenth Century Barbados.”  PhD dissertation.  The University of Hull, August 1980.  26.

22.  Beckles, Labour, has a chart of the growth on page 18.  Gragg says there were 600 whites living in Barbados in 1629 and 9,000 in 1639. [44]

23.  Alison Games.  “The English Atlantic World: A View from London.”  Pennsylvania History 64:46–72:1977.

24.  Beckles, Labour.  50.

25.  Calculation based on a table in Beckles, Labour, cited in above note 24.  I excluded those planters who had both slaves and servants.  Given all the unknowns, this is, at best, a rough number, but it is the only one I have to compare different information from different sources.

26.  Beckles, History.  17.
27.  Beckles, Labour.  17.
28.  Beckles, Labour.  19.
29.  Gragg.  150.

30.  Alison Games.  Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999.  125.

31.  David Harris Sacks.  The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700.  Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1991.  68.

32.  Gragg.  139.

33.  He came with a recommendation from Robert Rich who was aligned with the heirs of William Courteen.  He is mentioned in note 31 of the post for 7 November 2021.

34.  Beckles, History.  16.  Verney’s father refused the request and young Verney was expelled from the island for not paying his debts.

35.  Beckles, History.  17.

36.  Beckles, Labour.  27.  “This boom in cotton prices attracted the other English planters in the Eastern Caribbean into cotton production, and by 1639 the London market was glutted, and prices fell rapidly.”

37.  Beckles, Labour.  28.
38.  Baines.  100.

40.  Baines.  102.  The cotton from the Levant is Gossypium herbaceum. [45]  Hutchinson thinks the genus developed during the Jurassic period when “the continental masses of South America, Africa, Southern Asia, and Australia all lay in a single block south of the Equator.” [46]  The differentiation into different species came after the continents separated, but the development of modern types did not occur until humans began selecting plants for weaving and other uses. [47]

41.  Beckles, Labour.  16.

42.  J. B. Hutchinson.  “The Classification of the Genus ‘Gossypium’.”  1–53 in Hutchinson.  70.

43.  Sacks.  70.
44.  Gragg.  145.
45.  Hutchinson, Classification.  34.

46.  Hutchinson, Classification.  56.  He is writing before the theory of plate tectonics was widely accepted, and uses the earlier terminology of “continental drift.”

47.  Hutchinson, Classification.  53.

GR8 AL Music - Kumbaya

Topic: Holiday Versions
The holiday songs mentioned in the post for 24 December 2021 were sold to adults who earned paychecks, and were played by them or their children.  Elvis Presley marked the entry of a youthful audience who had enough cash to buy 45 rpm records that typically sold for .89. [1]

Adolescents not only had their own music, but their own television show, American Bandstand, to publicize their music.  It was 1958 when Brenda Lee recorded her generation’s first Christmas song.  While it did not become popular until 1960, [2] “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” [3] is still the favorite of the Adult Contemporary music audience. [4]

Like most teen-age genres “Rockin’” was slightly subversive.  It announced the holiday season was still important, but that they had outgrown “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  They wanted something that represented them by them.  Lee was thirteen-years-old when she made the recording. [5]

Since then, each generation has created its own.  One survey says The Jackson 5’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” [6] is the favorite of Hip Hop audiences. [7]  Among Amazon’s top holiday sellers [8] are ones by Mariah Carey in second place, [9] Taylor Swift in tenth, [10] The Beach Boys in seventeenth, [11] and the Eagles in thirty-second. [12]

In 2012, a German niche-recording company produced a version of “Kumbaya” for the Lounge-music market.  It begins with the sound of rushing water, then an electronic instrument plays the melody five times with small variations in key.  The primary sound is that of strings with an occasional brass flourish.  The beat is pronounced both in the melody and, sometimes, from a drum set and triangle.

Lounges are a natural market for niche companies.  They need music when they cannot afford live musicians and do not have much cash to spend.  The Lounge genre probably dates back as far as clubs in Berlin and Paris in the 1930s.  It came to this country in the 1950s when casinos opened in Las Vegas. [13]

New forms developed in Frankfurt, Germany, after Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti experimented with electronic dance music in 1989. [14]  Their work coincided with raves in England, and blossomed in Germany after the Berlin wall fell in November. [15]

The same year, 1989, a dance club in London opened a quiet room.  This gave Lounge music a new name, “Chill Out.”  Some noted its similarity to Brian Eno’s work and classed it as ambient. [16]  The genre has been described as “dance-ready, nostalgia-inducing” by one writer. [17]  Another “focuses on the relaxing, mellow, soothing, sometimes hypnotic aspects of a style.” [18]  The person who copyrighted this version of “Kumbaya” called his company “AL Music” which may stand for the German term “ambiente lounge.” [19]

The humor of “Kumbaya” was not in the performance, but in the presentation.  I bought four copies on Amazon in 2019, only to find they were the same.  As mentioned in the post for 23 January 2018, it is not unusual for niche recording companies to repackage recordings.  These were straight forward presentations: Jarno Emilian’s version was described as “lounge and chill out,” while Templin Starchild was listed as “chill lounge” and Kemuel Javan as “lounge.”  Mirza Abbas was called “X-Mas Chill Out and Lounge Essentials.”

The only clue to their genre, other than keywords was their names.  Camael is the archangel of war [20] and appeared on Super Nintendo’s Shin Megami Tensei II. [21]  Javan appears in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, [22] while Mirza Abbas happens to coincide with the name of a corrupt Bangladesh politician. [23]

Little may be required to submit an MP3 tape to a streaming service, but in 2012 Amazon still assumed songs were taken from CDs.  Whoever did the uploads created Potemkin profiles [24] with album names and covers that featured artwork found on inexpensive Christmas cards.  The record company names varied, because all that mattered to the computer was that the blank be filled and a bank account be provided.

The niche company produced four more listings that disguised their genre to reach a broader audience.  The albums had titles like Christmas Sleigh Ride and Zauberhafte Weihnachtshits.  The only clues were keywords like “edit” in the first and “mix” in the latter.

The company then went farther, and presented five versions with words like “traditional.”  One by The Holy Lords was advertised for “kids only.”  These crossed the line: instead of in-group humor, they were stealth attacks on consumers of holiday music that were more in the vein of “Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer.” [25]  One man complained:

“The title is misleading; ‘Traditional X-MAS Songs’ has nothing to do with any of the songs on this album except for the titles being those of traditional Christmas songs.  That and the Album cover with the gift, ornament and Santa hat and ‘Merry Christmas’ indicate Christmas Music.” [26]

The company’s humor began morphing from parody into deliberate misrepresentation with the version by Adad Kumbaya.  The album used the name of the Band-Aid song for Ethiopian relief. [27]  “Kumbaya (Africa Africa)” supposedly was on Do They Know It’s Christmas?

The line may have crossed into fraud when the computer expert found a way to attache his tape to the covers of popular collections.  Fittingly, they featured songs by Big Band and Las Vegas artists like Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra.  While it did not exactly say “Kumbaya” came from I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas, [28] the Amazon listing had all positive comments of readers to fool the buyer.  One woman who bought Traditional Christmas Classics [29] warned: “What it says the songs are is incorrect.” [30]

There are some who claim humor is not humor unless it tests boundaries and reveals taboos.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: none

Instrumental Soloist: electronic instrument that sounds like strings and brass

Rhythm Accompaniment: drum-set effects with occasional sounds of triangles

Credits
© GR8 AL Music

Notes on Lyrics
There are none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5 introduced by CRS
Time Signature: Xxx
Tempo: slow
Rhythm: pronounced

Basic Structure: strophic repetition with variations in key and dynamics for five iterations

Notes on Performance
Covers feature scenes found on Christmas cards

Audience Perceptions
The man quoted above did say:

“This is a Euro-‘Chill’ compilation.  It is electronica, and is fine chill compositions, but should be packaged as ‘Winter Euro Chill’ but not as a Christmas Music.  If one prefers Holiday ‘mood’ music divorced from the actual Christmas holiday and any tradition at all, this is a fine chill compilation.” [31]

Notes on Performers
Niche companies hide behind pseudonyms for a number of reasons.  In 2013, whoever uploaded copies of the “Kumbaya” tape said it was copyrighted by GR8 AL Music.  This does not mean this is the entity that produced the 2012 tape, but may represent who controlled it in 2013.

The name associated with the company also may be an alias.  Faris AL-Hassoni describes himself as a producer and distributor.  He does not list any musical skills. [32]

The mailing address is in Friedberg, Hesse, but, earlier this year, a press release said GR8 AL Music Management is located in Frankfurt-am-Main. [33]  Friedberg is sixteen miles north of Frankfurt by a rapid rail line. [34]  It is best known as the site of the army base where Presley was stationed in the 1950s.  The base closed in 2007, [35] but by then Frankfurt was expanding. [36]

Frankfort was becoming a city of immigrants, especially from Turkey and Morocco. [37]  The names of some of the artists used in 2012 would have appealed to young men interested in gaming.  Pomelion was a term for the part of a cannon that anchored a rope on ships. [38]  Lebuin Hereweald combined the names of an Anglo-Saxon saint [39] and a military leader. [40]  Lord Helmchen was borrowed from Mel Brooks Space Trek parody.  Dark Helmet [41] is on the side of evil in Spaceballs. [42]

In 2013, Al-Hassoni changed the focus for promotions of “Kumbaya.”  They still were packaged as traditional Christmas offerings, but the names he chose to feature were the ones associated with gaming: Lord Helmchen, Lord Kumbaya, and the Holy Lords.  The one new name was Damiel, a character in a 1987 film about angels hovering over Berlin. [43]

Availability
Within each year, they are listed by the first word of the performers’ names.  All were advertised by Amazon in 2019.  Some still are available there or on other streaming services.

2012
Adad Kumbaya.  “Kumbaya (Africa Africa).”  Do They Know It’s Christmas? Traditional Xmas Songs.  Holy Days Music, 2012.

Adam Bros.  “Kumbaya.”  Reach for the Stars, Xmas Special.  Heaven and stars music, 2012.

Cagatay Nadir.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Joyeux Noël Buddah Mix).”  Zauberhafte Weihnachtshits, Vol. 2.  Xmas Greatest Hits Recordings, 2012.

Clara Helene.  “Kumbaya My Lord.”  Klassische Weihnachten, Merry Christmas.  Traditional Classic Christmas, 2012.

Jarno Emilian.  “Kumbaya My Lord.”  Frosty Hits Merry Christmas.  Holiday Xmas Eve, 2012.

Kemuel Javan.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Relax Mix).”  Christmas Holidays Deluxe.  Santa Claus Music, 2012.

Lebuin Hereweald.  “Kumbaya (feat. My Lord).”  Tonight Traditional Christmas Hits.  Christmas Sweets Rec., 2012.

Lord Helmchen.  “Kumbaya (Come By Here).”  Traditional Christmas Classics.  Sound of Xmas, 2012.

Lord Kumbaya.  “Cumbaya My Lord.”  Delicious Christmas Songs, Vol. 1.  Christmas Greatest, 2012.

Mirza Abbas.  “Kumbaya My Lord.”  Jingle Bells and the Reindeer Sleigh Ride.  Greeting Christmas Prod., 2012.

Pomelion.  “Come By Here, Kumbaya My Lord.”  Deluxe Merry Christmas.  Christmas Eve Recordings, 2012.

Santah Jackson.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Best of Collection Mix).”  I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.  Christmas Biscuits Music, 2012.

Templin Starchild.  “Kumbaya my Lord (Deluxe Bonus Edit).”  Dreams Winter Xmas.  Christmas In Love, 2012.

The Holy Lords.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Come By Here).”  The Reindeer Xmas Collection.  Xmas Greatest Hit Recordings, 2012.

Turkey Sampson.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Born in the Usa Edit).”  Christmas Sleigh Ride.  Traditional Christmas Songs, 2012.

2013
Damiel.  “Cumbaya My Lord (Come By Here).”  Best Of Frohe Weihnachten Merry Xmas.  Sound of Xmas, 2013.  © GR8 AL Music.

Damiel.  “Cumbaya My Lord (Come By Here).”  Merry Christmas Gifts and Happy New Year.  Sound Of Xmas, 2013.

Lord Helmchen.  “Kumbaya (Come By Here).”  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Coffee and Cookie Christmas Production, 2013.  © GR8 AL Music [also 2012].

The Holy Lords.  “Kumbaya My Lord (Come By Here).”  Xmas Winter Parade.  Christmas In Love, 2013.  © GR8 AL Music [also 2012].

2014
Lord Kumbaya.  “Cumbaya My Lord (Home for Christmas Edit).”  Traditional Merry Christmas.  Christmas Eve Recordings, 2014 [also 2012].

2016
Adad Kumbaya.  “Kumbaya (Africa Africa).”  Merry Christmas, das Weihnachtskonzert.  GR8 AL Music, 2016 [also 2012].

End Notes
1.  Billboard, 8 January 1955 and 15 January 1955.  The record companies announced price changes in January 1955.  At that time, the retail price for a 45 rpm record remained .89.

2.  “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”  Wikipedia website.

3.  Brenda Lee.  “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.”  Decca 9-30776.  Released 1958.  45 rpm.  [Discogs entry.]

4.  Pinnacle Media Worldwide survey. [44]  That it is the best seller on Amazon this year [45] may say more about Amazon’s customers than the song.
 
5.  Wikipedia, Rockin’.

6.  The Jackson 5.  “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.”  Motown M-1174.  Released 25 November 1970.  45 rpm.  [Discogs entry.]

7.  Pinnacle Media.

8.  “The Top 100 Most Played: Holiday.”  Amazon website, accessed 10 December 2021.

9.  Mariah Carey.  “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”  Merry Christmas.  Columbia CK 64222.  Released 1994.  CD.  [Discogs entry.]

10.  Taylor Swift.  “Christmas Tree Farm.”  Republic Records.  Released 6 December 2019.  Digital tape.  [Discogs entry.]

11.  The Beach Boys.  “Little Saint Nick.”  The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album.  Capitol Records ST-2164.  Released October 1964.  [Discogs entry.]

12.  Eagles.  “Please Come Home For Christmas.”  Asylum Records E-45555.  Released November 1978.  45 rpm.  [Discogs entry.]

13.  Artists like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Louis Prima became associated with the casinos. [46]  The musical styles became better known sfter the brother-in-law of one of Sinatra’s friends became president in 1961. [47]

14.  “Frankfurt.”  Wikipedia website.
15.  “Eurodance.”  Wikipedia website.
16.  “Chill-Out Music.”  Wikipedia website.

17.  Bryan Hood.  “Vulture’s Brief History of Chillwave.”  Vulture website, 14 July 2011.

18.  “What Is Chill Indie Music?”  We Are the Guard website.
19.  Google Translation of “Ambient Lounge” from English to German.
20.  “Camael.”  Wikipedia website.  German often uses “k” in place of “c.”

21.  Ben Chard.  “Camael.”  Gamer Guides website.  Chard says the character was introduced on II in 1994, [48] and reappeared in V in 2021. [50]

22.  “Javan.”  Wikipedia website.

23.  “Mirza Abbas.”  Wikipedia website.  He was elected to Parliament in 2001 and arrested for corruption in 2007.

24.  None of the artists or albums appear in Discogs.  They only appear in Google searches for streaming services advertising these versions.

25.  The song’s history began in a Lake Tahoe casino, where Elmo and Patsy Shropshire sang it. [52]  In 1979, a privately-produced recording was played by disc jockeys who received such material. [53]  By 1984, it had become so popular, Epic released it. [54] Today, “Grandma” is among the most loved and most hated songs on polls conducted by Edison Media Research [55] and Pinnacle Media Worldwide. [56]

26.  killjoy714.  Comment added 28 November 2015 to Amazon listing for Merry Christmas Gifts and Happy New Year associated with Damiel.

27.  Band Aid.  “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”  Columbia 44-05157.  Recorded 25 November 1984; released 1984.  EP.  [Discogs entry.]

28.  Various Artists.  I’m Dreaming Of A White Christmas.  Noël NL 25292.  Released 1999.  [Discogs entry.]

29.  Various Artists.  Traditional Christmas Classics.  MCA Records MCAD-25988.  Columbia House CD.  Released 1989.  [Discogs entry.]

30.  Karen Atencio.  Comment added 6 December 2016 to Traditional Christmas Classics associated with Lord Helmchen.

31.  killjoy714.
32.  “Faris Al-Hassoni.”  Radaris website.

33.  “GR8 AL Music Has Signed New Album of Luke Mornay (Grammy Nominated Remixer).”  Press release, 1 March 2021, posted on Open PR website.  It said the company was organized in 2010.

34.  “Rhine-Main S-Bahn.”  Wikipedia website.
35.  “Friedberg, Hesse.”  Wikipedia website.
36.  “Frankfurt Population 2021.”  World Population Review website.

37.  World Population Review.  In 2015, immigrants outnumbered natives, especially among the young.

38.  “Cascabel (Artillery).”  Wikipedia website.  The proper spelling is “pommelion.”
39.  “Lebuinus.”  Wikipedia website.  His enemies ascribed his powers to witchcraft.
40.  “Hereweald.”  Name Doctor website.
41.  “Helmet” is “helmchen” in German.

42.  Spaceballs.  Directed by Mel Brooks.  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 24 June 1987. [57]

43.  Wings of Desire.  Directed by Wim Wenders.  Basis-Film-Verleih GmbH, 29 October 1987.  It was shown at the Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 1987. [58]

44.  Cited by “Christmas Music.”  Wikipedia website.
45.  Amazon, Top 100.
46.  “Lounge Music.”  Wikipedia website.
47.  “Peter Lawford.”  Wikipedia website.  Lawford married Patricia Kennedy.

48.  Shin Megami Tensei II.  Atlus, 1994, for Super Famicom and later “ported to multiple platforms.” [49]

49.  "Shin Megami Tensei II.”  Wikipedia website.
50.  Shin Megami Tensei V.  Atlus, November 2021, for Nintendo Switch. [51]
51.  “Shin Megami Tensei V.”  Wikipedia website.
52.  “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”  Wikipedia website.

53.  Elmo And Patsy.  “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”  Oink Records KP-2984.  Released 1979.  45 rpm.  [Discogs entry.]  I heard it that year on a country music station in Detroit where it was played by such a DJ.

54.  Elmo & Patsy.  “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”  Epic 15-05479.  Released 1984.  45  rpm.  [Discogs entry.]

55.  Cited by Wikipedia, Grandma.  47% love it and 17% hate it.
56.  Cited by Wikipedia, Grandma.  32% love it and 22% hate it.
57.  “Spaceballs.”  Wikipedia website.
58.  “Wings of Desire.”  Wikipedia website.