The first workers in the cane fields of the English Caribbean were white freemen, but by the late seventeenth century almost one-third of the field hands were prisoners.74 It was not unheard of for youths to be kidnapped (or “barbadosed,” a term analogous to the more modern “shanghaied”) off the streets of Bristol or Liverpool to work in the cane fields. Even when available, English laborers were often surly and uncooperative; in the best of circumstances they remained on the plantation for only a few years before their indenture, their contracts, their prison terms, their patience, or their
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