The Cutting of the Sugar Cane.

In the Caribbean the slaves would cut the canes with bills or cutlasses. They had to bend down to cut each cane close to the ground, stand up, cut the top and strip the dried leaves off the cane and throw the cane to one side and then go again. It was hard backbreaking labour, repeated the whole day. A next set of slave would pick up the cut canes, tied them in bundles, and carried them to the carts drawn by cattle or mules, which took them to the mill. A nearby river might powered a water mill, animal powered mills were used or a windmill was used in this period.

The mills heavy metal rollers crushed the canes to produce juice, which flowed down a gutter or spout into the boiling house. Here the juice was boiled in large open metal vessels called tayches. As the juice boiled impurities came to the surface and were skimmed off. The process was assisted by use of calcium oxide (White Lime) which helped by 'tempering' impurities. After skimming the juice was transferred to the next  tayche with huge ladles and the process repeated, so that the juice gradually became syrup. The tayches, of which there might be three or more, got progressively smaller. The tayches encompassing the boiling syrup when ready would be put out(fire extinguished) and the thick syrup transferred into a "cooler"(a large shallow wooden container), where it crystallized into sugar.