Season 6 · Episode 12 Recent

Montravers Estate (Part 1) - Nevis, West Indies

Sun, Mar 21, 1999 · 61 min

Invited by historian David Small, the team are on the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis, for a six-day dig to uncover the history of sugar production and slavery here. They are investigating a particular plantation, Montravers Estate, now overgrown, originally owned by wealthy 18th century Bristolean John Prater Pinney. Robin visits Bristol University, researching the extensive documentation. Back on Nevis, pottery expert David Barker is shown pottery sherds, most of which he dates to the 1840s. Phil crosses to neighbouring St. Kitts, to help make sugar from sugar cane. Sugar would have been extracted in a mill operated by teams of oxen. Molasses, the byproduct of sugar processing, was fermented to make rum. In the jungle Stewart searches for a slave village. They are also joined by local historian David Rollinson.