Animal-driven sugar mill

Sugar technology has been continually improved. Around 1640 in Pernambouco, the 2-roller mill was replaced by the much more productive 3-roller mill. This seems to have been a Jewish invention. These mills allowed for "double crushing", almost doubling juice extraction. The new mills were traded by Dutch merchants to the newly founded English colony of Barbados, and were used by the English settlers who arrived from Barbados to settle in Surinam in 1650.

In the beginning of the colony, these mills were mostly horse-driven. Though these simple mills have remained in use far into the nineteenth century, they had two major disadvantages: they had only a limited capacity, and more important, horses were very difficult to obtain. At the end of the seventeenth century, the government obliged the american-english shipmasters to bring in horses from Virginia, but the shortage remained. To obtain sufficient production continuity, a single mill would require 20 to 30 draught animals, although only 4 were used at one time.

The Jews had used watermill technology in Brazil, but it seems to have been the Zealander Marcellus Brouwer who introduced tide-mills in Surinam. Water became the main power source until the introduction of steam in the eighteen forties. More than 200 tide mills were constructed on the estates. These vast and expensive constructions with their 40-feet waterwheels must have dominated the landscape. In the beginning they were totally made of wood, and gradually developed into more sophisticated wrought-iron constructions.

Also, the boiling-house greatly improved during the centuries. Initially, the sugar was produced by boiling it in a series of 3 to 4 copper cauldrons, each heated by a fire underneath. Around 1720, the so-called "Jamaica-train" system was introduced, probably first used in Barbados around 1680 (and not Jamaica). 5 coppers were placed in a row on a large brick stove, with a furnace on the one end and a brick chimney at the other. In this way, all cauldrons could be heated by a single fire, greatly reducing the need for fuel.

Cane juice was ladled into the largest copper and heated to a certain temperature. It was then ladled into the next copper, and heated some more, etc., etc., etc., until, in the last copper (the "strike pan" or "teache"), granulation of the sugar occurred. This product, wet sugar, was then ladled out into a cooling vat. Ultimately the wet sugar was ladled into barrels that were placed on a rack on top of a reservoir. Holes were punched in the bottom of the barrels, and the liquid portion of the wet sugar (molasses) was allowed to drain into receptacles of the reservoir. What was left in the original barrels was muscovado sugar, raw sugar ready for shipment to Holland for further refinery. The molasses was sold to American skippers for export to North America.

Although the production process seems simple, this is not so. It required skill and experience to achieve a good muscavado quality. The temperature of the furnace must be correct; the cane juice must be ladled from cauldron to cauldron at the right time; etc. etc. Poor quality muscavado would sell at a much lower price.

As sugar production increased on the estates, "double" Jamaica train systems were used. Around 1850, the system was replaced by the modern evaporation pan technology still in use today.

At first, firewood from the estate forests would be used to heat the furnaces; but as the forests were cleared, wood became more difficult to obtain. Instead, dry "bagasse" was used. Bagasse is the leftover of the squeezed cane stalcks. It was sun-dried and stored in a special "bagasse" storehouse.

But the Jewish estates did not survive to see that day. Most of their estates have used the old horse-powered mills to the end, and most of them already had ceased production around 1770. The soil of the estates had become completely exhausted, and apparently nobody has ever considered manuring the lands. (which was common practise in the Antilles).

No tide-mill has survived, so the technology used cannot be studied. Almost no foundations have remained of the brick water channels at the mills. Only at Visserszorg estate at the Commewijne river a more or less complete foundation can still be found. The remains of the much older mill at Waterland estate at the Suriname river have been removed in recent years.

No intact jamaica-train system has survived. One can find lose sugar-kettles throughout the old estate area, but the elaborate brick furnaces have disappeared. Brick was very precious in the colony, so it was normal practise to dismantle all abandoned brick constructions for re-use.