The Island of Barbados

Attributed to Isaac Sailmaker, ca. 1694

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Artist: Isaac Sailmaker (Dutch, 1623–1721)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 44 1/2 x 91 inches (113 x 231.1 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

This is the earliest known painting of Barbados, which was colonized by the British in 1627 to exploit its resources for financial gain. When this image was painted, sugar was the island’s primary cash crop. The artist depicts the processes of the sugar industry, which fueled an explosion of wealth for white planters, traders, and colonial officials at the expense of African and Indigenous lives and freedom.

Beyond the coastal settlements, the sugarcane grows in fields while the enslaved workers bundle it and carry it away for processing at the mill on the shore to the right of the fort. Nearby, white workers prepare to load the sugar onto the heavily armed merchant ships that will transport it to Britain and its New England colonies for further processing and trade.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.