The First Plantation

The stunning Caribbean island of Barbados is the birthplace of many things: rum, Rihanna, and sadly, ghastly innovations in 17th century plantation culture that established the island as the world’s first economy powered entirely by slavery. These modalities would soon spread across the Caribbean and into the American South, helping to lay the groundwork for the systemic racism and white supremacy that still haunt the entire western hemisphere to this day.

Upon casting off the British monarchy and becoming the world’s newest republic in 2021, the island has since embarked upon a campaign seeking reparations from its former colonizer. Chief among its targets is Drax Hall, the island’s oldest continuously-owned and still operational plantation, which was recently inherited by conservative British Minister of Parliament Richard Drax, the wealthiest landowner in the UK’s House of Commons. With this, outcry has erupted on both sides of the Atlantic: should the Drax family continue to profit from the plantation, or should it be overturned to the people of Barbados?

Thoughtful yet confrontational, with a simmering undercurrent of gothic tropical noir, The First Plantation is a spiritual investigation into the haunted legacy of the 13th smallest country in the world, its oversized and often-overlooked impact on modern history, and its undeniable claim for reparations.