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What Was the Barbados Slave Code and Why Did It Matter? - From Smallholders to Sugar Estates: The Transformation of Barbados | Sleepy Facts About History
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In the span of a single human lifetime, the struggling island of Barbados transformed from a patchwork of poor tobacco smallholders into a highly profitable machine for extracting wealth through racial slavery. This episode examines the rapid shift that occurred between 1640 and 1680, exploring how a series of deliberate choices, economic crises, and technological adaptations created a blueprint for colonial capitalism.
The narrative follows the collapse of early cash crops like tobacco…
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