author
Richard Ligon
d. 1662
A struggling Royalist gentleman turned his time in seventeenth-century Barbados into one of the earliest English accounts of the island. His writing offers a vivid look at colonial life, trade, and plantation society at a crucial moment in Caribbean history.
1 Audiobook
A true & exact history of the island of Barbados
by Richard Ligon
About the author
Best known for A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados (1657), this English writer lived from about 1585 to 1662. After losing much of his fortune during the English Civil War, he sailed to Barbados in 1647 hoping to rebuild his fortunes.
He spent roughly two years on the island and wrote in detail about its landscape, people, trade, and the fast-growing sugar economy. That firsthand account became an important historical source because it captures Barbados during a period of major change.
His work remains valuable for its immediacy and detail, though modern readers also approach it critically because it describes a plantation world shaped by slavery. For listeners interested in early travel writing and colonial history, his book is both vivid and revealing.