18th and 19th century eastern caribbean furniture

Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical SocietyVol. LVI

A Glimpse into “Our Heritage”.Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturyEastern Caribbean Furniture:Its Background, History and Heritage.Linda Bowen

The Eastern Caribbean islands are a great repository of “AntiqueFurniture”. There is a growing interest in the Caribbean and

elsewhere in our heritage and its preservation. Furniture is one ofthe items which needs to be preserved, not just in the sense of itsrestoration, but in its story.

What can furniture tell future generations about their ancestors?It can give valuable information about our history, lifestyle, wealthor lack of it; skills available in the society during the time periodunder study; information about trade and occupations.

There is a mine of information about West Indian furniture and itscreators, hidden in several far-flung areas. For example in wills anddeeds, ships’ manifests, marriage, birth and baptism records, actualphysical furniture which has survived intact or even in pieces fromthe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; estate log books andrecords which tell the number of carpenters and joiners employedon the sugar estates, details of their work; items imported for use onthe estates, merchants records. The list is endless.

It is the knowledge that “the list is endless” that is encouragingresearch into the origins, existence, style and workmanship ofeighteenth and nineteenth century Eastern Caribbean furniture andthe material culture surrounding it.

The term Eastern Caribbean furniture in this article refers tofurniture imported into the Eastern Caribbean during the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries as well as furniture made in the EasternCaribbean during this period.

The entire Eastern Caribbean has not been investigated in thisarticle. It is mainly Barbados as an example of an English island,Martinique and Guadeloupe as examples of French islands and

116 / B’dos Mus. & Hist. Soc. LVI 2010

St. Lucia as an example of a mixture of French and Englishtechniques and furniture styles which have been investigated.

In what types of households would one expect antique furniture tobe found? The very wealthy, the middle class, the labouring masses,the very poor or, in ALL of the aforementioned? The answer is “inALL the aforementioned”. There are examples of antique furniturein several types of households throughout the Caribbean.

West Indian furniture is unique and cannot be easily classified inthe way that antique furniture from other countries can. This isbecause it is such a marriage of styles and ethnic influences. Thefurniture within the Caribbean has also been influenced by cross-cultural factors; some furniture can be identified as having a strictlyBritish influence, some strictly French, some Dutch and someSpanish. Other furniture may be a combination of two, three or evenfour nationalities. In addition, West Indian furniture has a definiteAfrican influence in terms of the motifs used as decoration, eithercarved directly into the wood as an Intaglio or a design in relief,superimposed on to the wood.

What are these distinctive West Indian styles? What makes WestIndian furniture so distinctive from European and American antiquefurniture of the same period? Is this difference ‘real’ or ‘perceived’?If real, how real and can it be easily identified.

Local West Indian craftsmen did duplicate many European and

The “Pink House” St. Lucia. An upper middle class home filled with manyexamples of Eighteenth and Nineteenth century antique furniture. Original photograph courtesy Linda Bowen 2003

A Glimpse into “Our Heritage”. 18th and 19th Century Eastern Caribbean Furniture./ 117

North American furniture pieces, but during the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, especially the nineteenth century, artisans inthe Eastern Caribbean incorporated their own styles into furnituremaking and West Indian furniture began to take on a distinctivestyle using motifs influenced by African designs. This was notunexpected since most of the skilled craftsmen in the West Indiesduring this period were either enslaved Africans or their freeddescendants.

Some furniture historians such as Connell, think that most if not

Indian Pond House St. Joseph, Barbados. A Barbados plantation house whichwould have been occupied by a wealthy planter family. This would have housedmany fine examples of eighteenth and nineteenth century antique furniture.Photograph courtesy Linda Bowen 2003

“Tyrol Cot”, St. Michael, Barbados. This would have housed several examples offine antique furniture.


all eighteenth century furniture in the West Indies was originallyimported. They believe that only the simplest tables, chairs andstools were made locally to supply the enslaved population andsome poor whites living in the island at this time. The main reasongiven for the small quantity of furniture produced in the West Indiesduring this period was because of the large quantity that wasimported into the region at this time. This was not so however,especially in the case of Barbados with its large white population.One should also include Martinique as an island with a large localoutput of furniture.

There were dozens of skilled joiners and cabinet makers ofEnglish origin who plied their trade on Barbados in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries. For example, in the twenty year periodbetween 1681-1700, ten men, identified in their wills as joiners,died. Ten deaths from a trade in such a short period of time is a goodindicator that the total number of joiners in Barbados was high.They were distributed as follows: St. Lucy - 2, St John - 1, St.Thomas - 1, St. James 1, St. Michael - 5. The higher number for St.Michael reflects the presence of a large number of consumers inBridgetown with consequent demand for furniture.

These individuals thought highly enough of their trade to identifythemselves as joiners. That they also had disposable income andother property is indicated by the fact that they left wills.

More than one individual passed on the trade to their sons. Forexample, Thomas Ostherhan of St. Michael left “all my workingtools” to his son Thomas (Department of Archives RB 4/18, p.694th July 1705).

In the earlier period, before the introduction of the mahogany(Sweitenia mahagoni) tree to the island in 1763 craftmen used otherlocal woods in addition to the imported pine, cherrywood andmahogany. Three such favourites were the manchineel (Hippomanemancinella), cedar (Cedrela odorata) and cordia (Cordia alliodora).In 1711, Elisha Holder bequeathed “my manshioneele press” to hersister. there is also mention of her “book press”.

After the Napoleonic wars of 1815 there was a decline in theimportation of furniture from Europe to the West Indies as a resultof the onset of Free Trade, the emancipation of the enslaved in theBritish West Indies and the subsequent decline in the fortunes ofsugar and hence the decline of the Planter class who could thereforeno longer afford the lavish lifestyles of yore.

The production of locally made West Indian furniture increasedalso because, after Emancipation, the former enslaved artisans wereeager to sell their skills in carpentry, woodwork and joinery rather


than continue working on the plantations to which they had beenbound. These skilled artisans gravitated towards the towns in theCaribbean and thereafter produced furniture which was unique instyle and ornamentation.

Nicholas Forde of Barbados, an avid collector of antique furnitureand author of an article on the material culture of Barbados whichappeared in a previous Journal of the Barbados Museum andHistorical Society, quotes from the work of Dr. Karl Watsonmentioning that artisans were employed by three particular firms inBarbados during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.These firms were some such as Thompson and Rowlandson andJohn and Abraham Harris. They operated in Bridgetown near thearea of what was St. Michael’s Parish Church which was the centreof the local cabinet making industry and also home to well knowncarpenters and joiners of the day like Philip Hackett and JamesGriffith.

Barbadian and other West Indian Artisans were exposed to skilledartisans from elsewhere which increased their pool of design ideasand also improved the quality of their work. For example, RichardGillow, the son of the famous Robert Gillow of LancashireEngland, came to Barbados to act as his father's representative inthe Island. While in the island he came into contact with andinfluenced many local artisans.

Foreign craftsmen from other parts of Europe also went toEngland to train as apprentices as well as to impart some of theirown skills in furniture making. This probably explains why therewere similarities in eighteenth and nineteenth century furniturethroughout Europe as well as similarities in furniture in the Frenchand British West Indies. In addition, furniture designers both inEurope and the West Indies worked for moneyed and aristocraticpeople who often influenced their style of work.

It is not necessarily true that all eighteenth century furniture in theWest Indies was imported. Advertisements in West Indiannewspapers of the day indicate that the Caribbean Islands had athriving indigenous furniture trade during this period, exportinggood quality furniture to Europe and America. It is true howeverthat planters in the West Indies who had relatives living in Englishmansions or French Chateaux did import European and NorthAmerican furniture for their West Indian great houses: Queen Anne,Georgian, Regency, Louis XIV, Rococo and Chippendale weresome of the styles in vogue during this period which made their waythrough trade to the Eastern Caribbean.

Furniture was bought or imported to suit the needs and desires of


the households who required it; for example, ladies work tableswere much in demand for planters’ ladies who spent time doingembroidery or other skilled needlework as a leisure activity.

Worktables were introducedto the West Indies in the lateEighteenth century. They werefairly small, fitted with a silkbag and compartments forneedles, cotton and so on.These worktables with pedestalsupports and turned fluted legs[for example the one displayedin the Barbados Museum] aretypical of the early nineteenthcentury.

One of the main differencesbetween imported eighteenthand nineteenth centuryfurniture and locally producedor indigenous West Indianfurniture of the same period,was the fact that much localfurniture was completelyhandcrafted by free blacks andmulattoes who did not have

access to machines. European furniture of this period was oftenmass-produced using machinery which had been developed as aresult of the Industrial Revolution of the 1750's.

Furniture historians also claim that the construction of importedfurniture was inferior to that made in the West Indies. Importedfurniture often had faults hidden beneath veneering and applieddecoration. There was little real carving in these pieces which werecharacterized by scrolled legs and feet, flat surfaces and straightcolumns.

The local or indigenous furniture of the West Indies during thesame period was characterised by dovetailing, joining and turningas well as in the use of West Indian fauna as decoration. Forexample, pediments using hibiscus or sandbox flowers and carvedacanthus leaves instead of the European scrolled pediment withcarved filials.

The West Indian craftsmen also had the unique practice of usingmahogany [West Indian mahogany or swietenia] as the joinerswood of choice. They used it as both primary and secondary woods

Ladies’Work Table. Early NineteenthCentury. (Collection of Barbados Museum)


in furniture construction. The European joiners ofthe same period did not have this practice. Thepreference for mahogany was not only because ofits texture and beautiful colour but also because itis resistant to termites and general decay. Furnituremade from mahogany can and does last forhundreds of years in pristine condition.

Unfortunately, according to Neville Connellwho has done valuable research on seventeenthand eighteenth century Barbadian furniture, verylittle eighteenth century furniture prior to 1780exists in the West Indies. This is not because thefurniture was inferior and consequently did notlast, but rather because it has been sold over theyears to wealthy collectors in Europe and NorthAmerica. Connell also believed from evidencefound in his research, that wealthy Barbadians ofthe nineteenth century preferred imported

West Indian Nineteenth Century Mahogany bed posts. These are beautifullyscrolled and turned, also exhibiting a Tulip design and Acanthus leaf designs.Photograph courtesy Linda Bowen 2003

Tub chair, mahogany with cordiainlay, ball and claw feet, Barbadianc1840. (Private collection)

Berbice Chair, mahogany c1880.(Private collection)


furniture to that which waslocally made, since to ownimported furniture was seen as astatus symbol.

Other well-off but less wealthyWest Indians commissionedlocally produced furniture fromjoiners in the West Indies.

Edward Lucie-Smith, Jamaicanborn and educated at OxfordUniversity emphasizes theownership of furniture as a statussymbol. Lucie-Smith argues thatfurniture indicates lifestyle. Somecultures do well withoutpermanent furniture or with verylittle permanent furniture, but forother cultures because furniture isgenerally bulky and cannot beeasily moved around, it suggestsa settled existence and thereforedevelopment or progress ofsociety. Lucie-Smith alsosuggests that furniture andarchitecture go together in a typeof marriage. Certain types ofarchitecture require a particulartype of furniture or a certainstandard of furniture. It wouldperhaps be difficult and out ofplace to have a large, loomingnineteenth century sideboard in the ‘front house’ or ‘shed roof’ of aBarbadian chattel house.

There are chattel houses in the West Indies which housed sometypes of eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture. Most chatteland middle class residences would have contained a wagon, acommode or an armoire.

As new styles of furniture became available those who couldafford it often got rid of what they owned and bought the newerstyles. In many cases the cast off furniture was given to the servantsor those ‘below stairs’, either to use in the kitchen or pantry of theGreat House or, to use in their own homes. In this way poorerhouseholds often acquired good quality antique furniture.

Large Nineteenth Century Sideboard

Chest of drawers, cedar, early 18th c.Rare Barbadian piece. (Coll. BMHS)


Lucie-Smith also suggests that possession of ‘good’ furnitureimplies a lifestyle above the subsistence level. This indicates thatpeople attach a great deal of importance to furniture in terms of itsownership and value. For many people, furniture has aesthetic,emotional, sentimental and monetary value. Hence the importanceof bequeathing furniture to family members and friends throughwills.

Furniture is functional, an indicator of status and the productionof it was considered an art, a skill, a craft, eighteenth and nineteenthcentury joiners and cabinet makers were artisans and craftsmen, notjust carpenters. Before 1838 enslaved people in the West Indies who

built furniture were called artisanslaves and were held in muchhigher esteem than those whoworked in the canefields.

Lucie-Smith also points outthat furniture tells a great dealabout the lives of the people whoowned it. Was the furniture usedfor recreation and leisure i.e. abackgammon table, billiard tablecard table or a ladies’ work table?

Was a mahogany dining table that was built to seat twenty or twentyfour persons used regularly in families who entertained lavishly? Adining table such as this, indicated that the owner was wealthy

Nineteenth century mahogany dining table, made to seat either twelve or twentyfour people. Leaves would be inserted or taken out to suit the number of diners.

Barbadian Chattel House


enough to entertain important personages on a lavish scale.Diaries, letters, accounts, wills and descriptions of households

often gave valuable information about furniture and how it wasesteemed by the families who owned it.

Apart however from the evident skill of the master craftsmen who made it, furniture tells us little about the people who made it.European furniture craftsmen often made pieces for several firms,and for designers like Chippendale, Sheraton Gillow. West Indian

craftsmen also did repairwork for these firms or for people who hadbought furniture from thesefirms and would oftenincorporate some of theirown style into the repair work. For example a Chippendale chair might contain featureswhich were not purelyChippendale.

In the late nineteenthcentury joiners were

West Indian carpenters’ tools used by joinersin Martinique. (Photograph courtesy ofDarmezin de Garlande and Joseph Poupon,Martinique).

Side chair, turned, reeded legs,mahogany, early 19th c. Barbadian(Coll. BMHS)

Washstand, mahogany, 19th c.Barbadian (Coll. BMHS)


considered superior tocarpenters since their skillswere specific. Their tools werevaried, they had to have a clearunderstanding of mathematics,had to learn the names anduses of a myriad of tools andhad to learn the art ofpolishing furniture so that thepatina was seen at its best.They also had to learn the artof caning since most doubleand single ended couchesmade and used in the WestIndies were caned. So were thedining chairs. Caned chairswere cooler to sit on than werestuffed or upholstered furnitureand were therefore more suited

to the tropics.As a result of their specific skills and importance in society

through their service to the upper and middle classes, joiners of theeighteenth and nineteen centuries, whether in Barbados,Martinique, St. Lucia or Guadeloupe were able to carve arespectable niche for themselves in society. They were in aprivileged position, earning a good living, being independent andcontributing to the heritage of Barbados and the other West Indianislands.

Andrew Brewster, a former student of TheUniversity of The West Indies, Cave HillCampus researched the topic ‘Artisans inBarbados in the late nineteenth century’Brewster’s research found that there were twohundred and fifty-seven cabinet makers andjoiners in Barbados in 1881. It is obvious fromthe number quoted that furniture production inBarbados at this time was flourishing.

The French West Indian islands ofMartinique and Guadeloupe are, like theformer British Caribbean islands, a haven for

Photograph of bed posts made from Coubaril wood,used in Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Lucia.

19th Century mahogany dining chair.Notice fluted insert panel. Joins arepegged indicating age – possible date1840s, Barbados.


eighteenth and nineteenthWest Indian furniture.

The company of The Islesof America which was theFrench company responsiblefor the administration ofFrench colonies for Francegave “financial aid andprivileges to carpenters andwood-workers to travel fromEurope to the New World”.This was the beginning oflocal furniture production onthe French islands. Britishand French islands at thistime as well as islands likeSt Lucia which changedownership between theBritish and French fourteentimes, were phenomenallywealthy as a result of theproduction of sugar in theeighteenth century. Thisphenomenal wealth wastranslated into opulence andextravagance in the homesand furnishings of theplanters both in the WestIndies and in their palatialmansions and chateaux in England and France.

The French ebenistenie or cabinet makers like their Englishcounterparts used a great deal of mahogany or ‘acajou’ in theirfurniture production during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.The French also used woods like coubaril, pele, gaiac, laurier rose,mancen and illier which the English islands did not use on a largescale.

French West Indian furniture researchers like Francoise Darmezinde Garlande and Joseph Poupon claim that although aspects ofFrench West Indian furniture may have been influenced by variousFrench European styles e.g. Second Empire or even by styles fromEngland, most of the French West Indian furniture can be describedas ‘Interpretation Martiniquaise’, which uses French creole motifsespecially the sandbox motif on their armoires. These armoires

Table, turned legs with cross stretchers,17th century, possibly West Indian.(Coll. BMHS)

French console table – St. Lucia


were different to those in Europe, beingcharacterized by recessed door panels,double or triple-headed moulded frames,curvilinear door frames, scalloped skirtsand short cabriole legs.

Four-poster beds were also produced inlarge numbers in the British and FrenchWest Indies as were consoles, recamiers ormeridiennes. [settees or couches]

Furniture production in Guadeloupeduring the eighteenth century wasinfluenced by the Dutch, [particularlyDutch East Indian influence] English,American and the Swedes.

Nicholas Forde in his article “Aspects ofthe Material Culture of Barbados of theSeventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” hasexamined some of the rare surviving ships’manifests of the eighteenth century. Theship’s manifests record some of thefurniture imported into the island duringthis period, some of which was influencedby the Dutch. These included escritoires,couches, cabinets and dressing boxes. MrForde suggests that many of these items

Mahogany stair newel –St. Lucia. The top ischaracteristic of FrenchAntillean 19th Centuryfurniture.

St Lucian Four-Posterbed of French AntilleanOrigin. Note theelegantly turned Posts.

Four-poster bed elaborately carved using motifs ofWest Indian flora the popular acanthus leaf. 19thcentury mahogany Barbados.


were copied by local artisans, many of whom were skilled, enslavedpeople. It is thought that a similar occurrence would have happenedin the French West Indian islands.

So, what is West Indian furniture? How can a study of furnituregive us information about the lives and lifestyles of the people wholived in the period during which the furniture was made and used?

Much furniture grew out of a way of life, a necessity. Sometimesan extravagant necessity. For example:

(1) Sideboards which were not in regular use until the rich, opulentlifestyle of the mid to late eighteenth century, the heyday of wealth in Europe and the West Indies.

(2) Work tables which came into being for the use of upper classand middle upper class women who saw embroidery as anhonorable past time, a skill which they used in order to avoidboredom in a society when women of these classes did neitherhousework nor paid work.

Was West Indian furniture bought and used mainly for its utilityor was it for its aesthic, emotional, sentimental, artistic and mone-tary value? All of the above translate into giving information aboutthose who made or created furniture and those who bought it andused it.

Did eighteenth and nineteenth century consumers think about andvalue the furniture which they bought, in the same way that peoplein the twentieth and twenty-first centuries value the eighteenth andnineteenth century furniture?

Is the antique furniture of more value now since:

(a) It is old. In some cases over three hundred years old.

(b) Although it can be reproduced up to a point, the original isscarce and therefore “priceless”.

(c) Is the artistic skill and technology which produced eighteenthand nineteenth century furniture still available?

(d) Do modern artisans, crafts persons and joiners still want tomake eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture, bearing inmind that the methods and techniques used to produce suchwere time consuming, but unique.


(e) Are the woods used to craft this antique furniture still readilyavailable?

Much of our West Indian flora has been replaced by ‘ConcreteJungles’. There has been little reforestation and replanting ofprimary woods like mahogany which was used to produce theexquisite eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture.

We need to preserve our heritage as it relates to furniture foranother reason. Most of the artisans in the West Indies whophysically produced eighteenth and nineteenth century furniturewere from the lower classes. Quite a few who owned this lovelyfurniture were also from the lower classes or the lower middle class.What do we really know of their skill in producing and theirownership of antique furniture? Very little. Why? The privilegedfew wrote about themselves and seldom about the less privilegedwho either could not or did not write.

It is important then for us as Barbadians and West Indians topreserve our eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture andfurnishings as a part of our heritage. By so doing we will preservethe artistic and creative heritage of our forefathers and will retainthe fame and beauty of West Indian furniture which in recent yearshas spread beyond the shores of the islands on which it flourished.It is especially important for us to preserve our furniture heritagesince during the twentieth century, large quantities of Barbadianmahogany furniture were bought by Martiniquans, who had thefinancial means and the knowledge about our unique West Indianheritage to do so. Consequently, some Barbadian eighteenth andnineteenth century antique furniture has been classified by furnitureenthusiasts and furniture historians as being of French West Indianorigin, when this is incorrect.

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18th and 19th century eastern caribbean furniture

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