Est.2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

Barbadian Author Andrea Stuart Discusses her Book Sugar in the Blood

← Back

Your message to the BLOGMASTER was sent

CONTACT THE BLOGMASTER ONLY

Listen to Barbadian author Andrea Stuart gives a riveting insight into her book Sugar in the Blood at the Barbados High Commission in London. An introduction is given by Barbadian historian Richard Drayton who is the widely respected Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College London. The book launch comes at an interesting time with a reparation claim being explored by Caricom. The book highlights how the history of Barbados and England is forever intertwined. Sugar built Britain on the backs of slaves.

 

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

112 responses to “Barbadian Author Andrea Stuart Discusses her Book Sugar in the Blood”

  1. PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926 TO 2013 , MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS OF BARBADOS, BLPand DLP=Massive Fruad Avatar
    PLANTATION DEEDS FROM 1926 TO 2013 , MASSIVE FRAUD ,LAND TAX BILLS AND NO DEEDS OF BARBADOS, BLPand DLP=Massive Fruad

    Nice

  2. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    “Repatriation”? This is the second time in two posts. Nice one.

    Richard Drayton…”Cambridge Professor” and :”Barbadian”….eh?

  3. 555dubstreeti Avatar
    555dubstreeti

    Repatriation is a must

  4. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    @all BU
    People. I watched this video clip and it really got me thinking and stimulated enough to actually get up, sit down, write and fix deed to thought.

    To say I consider this work to be an important one is an understatement. To be clear I have NOT read the book as yet, given as I only became aware of its existence with this video posting, so I am certainly in no position to make any deep or insightful commentary on its technical artistry and historical accuracy and or social validity.

    But.
    I do not hesitate to promote this work because of the unreservedly impressed recommendations of professor Drayton, a friend and old school mate from KOLIJ and a man of irrefutable intellect and reputation and accomplishment. A FOREIGNER RECOGNIZED in ENGLAND to be one of the FINEST historians chronicling their OWN COUNTRIES HISTORY! I have little doubt therefore of any necessity to challenge the technical competency of the book. But this is also not what matters to me.

    What is important is that here we have an (unquestionably) young and gifted BARBADIAN speaking from a unique perspective about her and our shared history. The white man, the black man, the slave owner, the slave, the Englishman and Barbadian and the migration back and forth from one island to the next.
    I believe we see in this a creation of as equal importance and significance to this generation as staples like “In the castle of My Skin” were to the last.
    For once I believe we should get out ahead, recognize and celebrate AND SUPPORT AND PROMOTE not just accomplishment and greatness but OUR OWN!

    This is how success is achieved! TOGETHER! It’s not just about the one talent doing everything that needs to be done to achieve success on a world stage but about the people who get together behind them and give of their own expertise or contacts or other resources to take them to the top!

    For once let’s put aside our petty jealousies and differences and put our money were our mouths were and working TOGETHER do something worthwhile!

    Cyprian

  5. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    P.S.
    I just looked at the various reviews on Amazon and it only increases my tremendous admiration and respect and pride in what this BAJAN work has the potential to leave its mark on the true shared stories of our peoples.
    Cyprian

  6. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    I have now the read the book, under strong protest. I learned friend sent it to me with a note that said, “Please read this and spot the errors,” and I certainly spotted the errors. And to call the lady a historian is a misnomer. A better discription is “novelist”. It is replete with lacunas in fact and research and attempts to present facts that are not in evidence. It also distorts actual historical facts in pursuit of an agenda. But I am sure that Hillary Beckles thinks it is excellent – it transcends even his lack of scholorship and penchant for manipulation. As to being an aid to seek reparation, it is more like a weapon to shoot reparation in the foot (sorry, Ross, unavoidable use of the word twice in one sentence). I do not see it, as has been suggested, as a cause for Bajan pride, but quite the contrary. Unless, that is, you call it by its correct name – a novel. But as a novel, it is banal at best.

  7. John Avatar
    John

    Ms. Stuart went to great pains at the launch of the book to say she was no historian.

    I think it would be a mistake to read the book looking solely for a historical perspective.

    I admit I have not read the book as yet but plan to ….. life keeps me busy.

  8. David Avatar
    David

    @Amused

    Are you saying Professor was less than honest in his review?

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @Ross

    Thanks for the feedback, nicely done.

    @all

    Have a sight of many who reviewed the book.

    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642504-sugar-in-the-blood

  10. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    @everybody
    Of course it’s a NOVEL! My point is that it is a STORY that links MANY OF OUR COMMON STORIES! It is not a Europeanized colonized ” colored” view and recording of historical events. You want accurate details, go get a history book! You want a romantic book featuring the big black Mandingo, go buy a Mills and Boons. Do you want to FEEL and relate to the origins of OUR cultured truths, then THIS is where this book fits in!
    As I said before this is NOT about trying to review and criticize the work. It is about recognizing its importance and relevance to the discussions of TODAYS world.
    The first thing Mandella did was to bring black and white together in HONEST and open discussion and acknowledgement of the horrors of the recent past. Have you not ever asked yourself why such raw and naked discussion NEVER happens in Barbados? People never talk about slavery and the links and chains that genetically bind every single one of us proud barbadians. Many would have us believe that all we black people are fresh pure from Africa and that white people are NOWHERE to be found in our lineage except as the evil oppressor and ” foreigner”.
    Why are we so afraid of this type of conversation? Too inconvenient to accept that white people were NOT the only demons in this world?
    Go look for errors and as usual miss the forest for the trees.

    Cyprian

  11. iabingy Avatar
    iabingy

    Reparation for what? taking you from your huts made of cow shit and giving you a better ;life than in Africa where you would be killed and it is much harder to survive.idiots! How about all the other slaves all through history?
    black keep pushing this shit and you going to see what going to happen?
    wunna going get explodation instead !
    oh as a decedent of white Irish slaves from barbados whom were there before blacks and treated worst .good luck johnny.

  12. iabingy Avatar
    iabingy

    keep pushing and you may be sorry ! one small bomb would wipe out barbados.yyyyyyaaaaaaahhhhheeeaaaarrrrrrr!lol
    kidding of course.

  13. Amused Avatar
    Amused

    @David. That is PRECISELY what I am saying. Nepotism to the end. Has it occurred to anyone the connection between the author and another professor named Stuart? Well, she happens to be his daughter.

    @John. As I said, I have read the book. Also, one of the prerequisites (as Ross will certainly confirm) of our line of work is an excellent memory. If mine serves me correctly (and I can assure you that it does, as I have reviewed the comment) there would appear to be a startling similarity between a certain character discussed in great detail in the book from whom the author claims descent and one from whom you claim you are descended, as per your comments some weeks ago on BU in the legal action for reparation. I remembered this comment of yours, as you used it, in part, to ground your anti-reparation position and I reflected how lucky you were that you were at least able to trace some of your ancestors, when the majority of us cannot. I see that I made a comment to that effect at the time. Records were not often kept for slaves. Happy reading anyway! But remember the old pre-DNA testing adage, “Maternity is a matter of fact. Paternity is a matter of opinion.”

  14. John Avatar
    John

    Amused

    Many of us are related … I think that is probably a conclusion one could draw from what I have been told or read about the book.

    I figured out I have a whole set of cousins here a couple of days ago just by reading an obituary and putting two and two together.

    A couple of years ago it was the Internet that taught me the lesson again and I learnt of other cousins in the US.

    …. and years before that it was just a chance encounter with one.

  15. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    I haven’t read the book. I have no intention of reading it. Cyprian hasn’t read the book but says it’s marvelous – because someone says so. Amused has read the book and says it’s banal.

    Amused says it’s more a novel than a history. Cyprian exclaims it IS a novel. At least two of the Amazon reviews say it’s “non-fiction”.

    So what IS it? Well I don’t care much. From what Amused says it sounds like the sort of thing Amelia Nettleship might have written Amused will recognize the Rumpole reference which reminds me to tell him my memory is lousy and I take bottles and bottles of ginkgo.

    I also note that some Amazon reviews describe Ms Stuart as a professor, but then Cyprian says repeatedly that the real professor is Barbadian rather than Guyanese – presumably because he went to Harrison C.

    The post says it is all about repatriation and that the London Professor is a Cambridge Professor.

    What to do about any of this? I don’t know.

    But, frankly, I don’t think anyone should be voting about it – and, knowing the genre pretty well, and otherwise in happy ignorance, I would go with Amused.

  16. David Avatar
    David

    @Ross

    You don’t make errors?

    It is your right to read or not read, who cares anyway.

    The book comes highly recommended by Professor Richard Drayton. BU thinks he has established enough of a reputation and body of work to give weight to his association with Andrea Stuart.

  17. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    David

    Yes – many

    Quite and quite

    His association with A Stuart is his business.

    David, if you don’t see the difficulty in writing meaningfully about this book given the conflicting evidence, either you need some ginkgo as well or you are totally without humour. But why pick on me – isn’t Amused (bless him) the boy you should ‘go’ for if you don’t like criticism? Sounds like scapegoating to me.

  18. John Avatar
    John

    David

    I don’t get the nepotism claim of Amused, it went over my head …. maybe I misread the post.

    Can’t imagine why this particular book has him tearing his shirt and his nighty to bits.

  19. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    John

    You misjudge him. Amused does not wear anything in the bedroom.

  20. barbadian losers Avatar
    barbadian losers

    Amused,

    we have a tradition in Barbados of people producing substandard crap that is feted as “history” and “well- researched” work. Any fool can “write” a load of bs here in Barbados and pass it off as authoritative work. On this small incestuous island, it will be celebrated because that is how we do it bout hay.

  21. David Avatar
    David

    For the record Andrea Stuart lives in the UK to our best knowledge.

    Cyprian are you able to get a response from Richard Drayton based on the foregoing ?

  22. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    @everybody
    I keep trying to point out to you all that you are missing the point! I am not concerned with critiquing the work. To start people like different things and “art” to a great degree is highly subjective. My opinions therefore I consider unimportant or not critical to my come try.
    But.
    I can with a certain measure of confidence in the observations of others.
    1. Professor Drayton who’s intellect and integrity I can personally vouch for and who is further an INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AND ACCLAIMED HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR AT AN ELITE WORLD CLASS INSTITUTION!
    And you seriously want to quibble and claim you can spot so many errors that he by implication has ” overlooked” or conveniently ignored? If this is not the definition of small mindedness and stupidity then I don’t know what is.
    2. The varied reviews of ordinary people who purchased the book on Amazon and a group in whom I have sufficient trust to post honest and unbiased critique and opinion.
    3. Professional reviews like the one partially quoted below
    From the New York Sunday Times:

    “There is not a single boring page in this book, which — as a longtime reader of nonfiction and skipper of boring pages — I can attest is an achievement in itself. In every chapter of “Sugar in the Blood,” history, fact, analysis and personal reflection combine to move the narrative forward, both the grand story of slavery and sugar and the more mundane but always fascinating story of family and business. And beneath every banal moment of cooking or cleaning, of selling or buying, of dressing or undressing, the threat of uprising and rebellion beats loudly, as it must have done on the plantation.”

    4. My listening for myself to the video and the words of the author herself. I found her to be eloquent insightful and articulate and DETERMINED to bring a high measure of integrity and unbiased unflinching unqualified and uncolored look at our TRUE story and history. And as to that slur that people in Barbados can hide and write a load of crap is in itself an insult and total load of CRAP! Can’t you judge quality for yourself, read between the lines separate fact from fiction and determine what is IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT?
    If you want to know more about the author, then just google it for yourselves. Don’t just take my word for it especially as I have only succeeded in possibly bringing such a measure of confusion with my intentions of bringing us people together who DONT want to be together.

    Cyprian

  23. David Avatar
    David

    Review by the NYTimes.
     

    SUGAR IN THE BLOOD
      A Family’s Story of Slavery and Empire
    By Andrea Stuart
    Illustrated. 353 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.
    Slaves built this, I thought as I wandered from one grand 18th-century monument to the next. How rarely we acknowledge that Europe’s great cities were built on profits from the labor and blood of slaves cutting sugarcane half a world away.
    Stuart, a London-based author of Barbadian ancestry, writes of contemporary England: “Sugar surrounds me here.” The majestic Harewood House in Leeds was built with money from Caribbean sugar plantations, she points out, as was the Codrington Library of All Souls College in Oxford and Bristol’s mansions. The slaves of the West Indies built this wealth while unaware of its existence, or of their own connection to it. Without them, the vast empire that gave the world Victoria and Dickens might never have existed.
    In this multigenerational, minutely researched history, Stuart teases out these connections. She sets out to understand her family’s genealogy, hoping to explain the mysteries that often surround Caribbean family histories and to elucidate more important cultural and historic themes and events: the psychological after­effects of slavery and the long relationship between sugar — “white gold” — and forced labor.
    “Sugar in the Blood” begins in the late 1630s with Stuart’s maternal ancestor George Ashby, a young blacksmith in England, preparing for his voyage to the Americas. He was “most likely typical of the men who settled much of the New World, a man of action, not reflection, who did not take time out to write letters or keep journals,” Stuart writes, and she relies on historians and other personal accounts to flesh out his motivations, his reasons for migration and the “assault of newness” that was Barbados.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/books/review/sugar-in-the-blood-by-andrea-stuart.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&

  24. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Cyprian

    “Bringing people together’

    Here? On BU? Your task is very difficult if not impossible. Don’t be disappointed. You can only keep plugging away and (as I would say of myself) your little whispers will be heard by someone or other. It’s rather like the task of a priest. If ONE person moves more easily because you lived, that is a success story – and this without any reference to the conversation about the merits of the book or the criteria we use to assess it – well, if that’s what we’re supposed to do. But also remember – there may be another view from yours, equally tenable, equally persuasive, so you must not be too hard on us..

  25. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Cyprian

    I have just noticed that some errors to be found in the intro have been corrected. See, someone listens sometimes.

  26. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    sugar in the blood, I thought at first this was about the rise of diabetes in Barbados, But maybe someone can tell me if this is irony or not. Here is an author complaining how money was made off sugar and sent back to the owners in Britain to let them have a good life style. Yet she writes about Barbados and the profit from her books goes back to Britain to improve her lifestyle Sugar was around for thousands of years and if it didn’t come from Barbados like every other cheap thing today it would have come out of asia

  27. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Professor Drayton describes Ms Stuart’s book as ‘popular history’ which has, he says, a heavily researched substratum. Having heard Ms Stuart’s reading, yes, it sounds populist and I can quite understand why visitors to Barbados (as, eg, in the Amazon reviews) might find it compelling. Ms Stuart is a journalist who plows a very broad furrow not a professional historian, and so one can hardly expect the sinews of the ‘Structure of Politics…’ or ‘Decline and Fall…’ as much as Professor Drayton valiantly attempts to give the work serious academic credibility – a quality which, for all I know, may well be there though, having heard the reading, I rather doubt. But good luck to the book anyway. It does, after all, represent a fragment of its author’s life.

  28. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    @everybody
    I really do find these particular lines of discussion not just surprising but stunningly and sadly tediously disappointing!
    I will acknowledge that as individuals we ALLhave the right to fully express our OWN opinions and feelings and positions on whatever subject we choose in whatever manner we choose and regardless of who shares the same view or not. So I CANT criticize anybody for what they have or choose to say.
    But.
    When I hear nonsense like the irony of he author making (implicitly) “Ill gotten” earnings from stories that belong to “US” and she will spirit that money away like her ancestors to improve her own life in the U.K?…..
    What am I supposed to do but call such comment small minded and mean spirited at a level that I just can’t rationalize or consider reasonable or sensible or even worthy enough to be uttered by the educated and enlightened.
    Impolite and ugly.
    You are privy to what she does with HER own money? You know where HER book sales come from and where they go back to? When she comes back to Barbados as often as she does none of these proceeds go to support work and or other entities here?
    She is SELLING Barbados and putting us on an INTERNATIONAL stage.
    Less WE ever forget and for those who never knew and those who only pretend they never knew.
    She is writing to REPRESENT the lost voices of OUR ANCESTORS, hers , mine, theirs AND yours and that is not worthy enough or mean something to you?
    Well, what does that say about YOU?

    Cyprian

  29. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    P.S.
    We have no problem with acknowledging the impact of Alex Hailey and a book called “Roots” on an entire generation and we are so easy to tear down and belittle a Barbadian whose work may have the potential to impact as greatly on this one?
    Why don’t you criticize him for writing and making money from the stories and on the backs of African slaves too?
    Cyprian

  30. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Cyprian

    But mean spiritedness is always the hallmark of a pharisaical society like ours.

    Mind, there is always room, surely, for the cynic in our discussions whose dry humour and waspish tongue invigorates and makes us look at ourselves more closely – and also the rebel of course, the man who is prepared to be cursed in the name of truth however misguidedly idealistic he may be.

  31. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    On the subject of new books – we must not forget local products.

    May I mention Sydney Simmons’ ‘STRANGERS IN THE VILLAGE’ which was launched last week.? It is sad that so many talented people have to publish books themselves here.

    If YAGGA ROWE (and anyone else interested in poetry) is reading me – there are moves afoot to publish an anthology of Barbadian poetry, an idea mooted some years ago which never got off the ground.

  32. Cyprian La Touché Avatar
    Cyprian La Touché

    @everybody
    There is always room for wasps and Bees. Too! I have absolutely NO problem with looking at ones self in the mirror BUT it cannot be done in the reflection of someone else. YOU are the one that has to stand there first and foremost and RECOGNIZE that it is indeed yourself that is falling short.
    When are we really going to learn? Our problem is that we are only prepared to couch our conversations in terms of “what can we get”. So we easily talk and fight for reperations. But if we spoke in the language of what can we give, what can we do to preserve and honor and ultimately FORGIVE then we will so easily get all that in the end we deserve!

    Cyprian

  33. John Avatar
    John

    I think the author has taught us a valuable lesson.

    Our stories are important and are worth researching and documenting.

    I reckon I have a couple of books (perhaps even flims) in me too and until I can deliver I really don’t see it as right to criticize another who has delivered the goods.

    I prefer to learn from the experience.

    Did you know she has another book out relating to the French West Indies?

    How many of us have ever written a book, far less a learned paper in our lives? ………

    …. not to mention given a learned contribution here on BU and defended it!!

  34. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Just another person making money off Barbados back, if she donated all the proceeds to children’s education on the island, for books or pencils I would be first in line to sing her praises.

  35. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Lawson

    LOL. Now we all know you’re being wickedly humorous.

  36. David Avatar
    David

    Why is it if some of you have nothing constructive to bring embrace the analogy that silence is golden?

  37. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    Spoil sport….

  38. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    John

    Now I think you and I generally get on for all the right reasons. But I have to take issue with three things you wrote.

    1. ‘Unless you’ve written you have no right to criticize.’

    No John, literary critics do it all the time. It give them something to live on.

    2. ‘How many of us have ever written…?’

    John, you will never know and if you did it would only start quarrels of the “My Dad is bigger than your Dad’ sort

    3. ‘A learned paper on BU and defended it’

    I don’t think this is the forum for a “learned paper” to be defended and, if it is, I am sure you’re right that only very few of us are capable of it. Nothing of what I read really counts as a ‘paper’ – maybe ‘thesis to be explored’ but not much more than that. Of course H Austin gives us ‘War and Peace’ every week and I really don’t know who now has the staying power for it. I don’t. There are some contributors I enjoy reading – Pacha is one though I don’t agree with him much of the time. But I DO appreciate him very much.

    For myself, I did try a sort of paper once in the other place – ie an ongoing, examination of situations in the legal system which demonstrated how it was breaking down on a daily basis in my experience and what might be done about it – not exactly a ‘broad-brush- stroke’ thing as in ‘Tales from the Courts’ – more (since we’ve being doing history) a Namier like thing or (for art’s sake) a pointillist approach – anyway an empirical approach. What happened? Our AC, whom I’d not seen there before, unexpectedly appeared and disrupted the whole thing with his ignorant screeching the object of which was clearly to disrupt. I then heard, back here, that I should go back to the other place from whence I came – and this not from AC but from ‘someone else’, a humourful fella whom I had never seen at the other place either. So you work it out. But me produce something here? I’d have to be bloody crazy. Besides I do my bit as we go along as, indeed, we all do.

    Which reminds me to say…this post has been given ‘life’ because of Amused’s piece as the only one who claims to have read the book. He is not, of course, specific in his criticisms. Nor has he appeared since. I wish he would. I miss him. Without him there would have been nothing to talk about. Errrrr…you what? Am I trying to say something here?

  39. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    David

    If silence was golden you wouldn’t have a blog to preside over.

  40. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    But let me say that I do appreciate this post as a very welcome variation from the standard fare of crumbling hotels, ministerial porn stars and subhuman judges. Thankyou David.

  41. David Avatar
    David

    @Ross

    Let us give thanks that the Courts are on Xmas siesta.

  42. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Not yet I think.

  43. David Avatar
    David

    This is the point…lol.

    They are for you.

  44. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    Just read the NYT review and it is very compelling, perhaps I should buy it but I have some books on the go and so I’ll wait until after the holidays. I wonder if the ancestor Ashby is the same who owned property in what is now Oistin’s and Lodge Road. I remember Bobby Morris did some research on the family some time ago.

  45. David Avatar
    David

    @Sargeant

    In the video she referred to bring of Plumgrove.

  46. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    David

    Whenever you get smart-assed or pissy it’s a sure sign someone is getting close.

  47. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    Sorry David
    I watched the first 5 minutes and then had to run off, I’ll watch it in its entirety later.

  48. David Avatar
    David

    @Ross

    Indeed, your oft tried modus operandi.

  49. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Mean spirited??? Just tired of paying for the sins of the ancestors. Histories are like asses we all have one. I am starting to think you are not even from Cypria.
    David
    I think you may be talking to me, but Thoreau said it better ” silence is golden the universal refuge the sequel to all dull discourses and foolish acts”

  50. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Then come as close as you like David. Let me see the whites of your eyes sugar.

    Sarjeant had to run off after five minutes. That was exactly my response. Doubtless he will go back, as I did, and stay a few minutes more.

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading