Gendered tasks

An enslaved woman (nr. 6) collects the liquid that the rollers had squeezed from the sugar cane. She can be seen carrying it up a small set of steps, careful not to spill anything. From the little elevated cabin, she’s pouring it in a wooden pipe (‘gutter’) that transports the sugar juice to the boil house on the left of the image.

The work on the fields was also gendered. The men cut the sugar cane; chopping the tops, taking off the leaves, and cutting the chalks closely to the ground. Women bundled the cane together and loaded it on oxcarts for transportation to the mill.