Pair of wooden sugar tongs, inscribed Miss J. Williams. 
These unusual treen tongs are made of bentwood (objects made by wetting wood by either soaking or steaming, and bent into shape). There is a heart on the top of the chip carved handle, implying the tongs were given as a love token. There are two glass panels, one with Miss J. Williams’ name. The item was donated to the museum from the collection of the former Museum of the Home in Pembroke. 

Sugar was a valuable commodity in overseas colonisation and was a major economic driver in the enslavement of African people in the Americas. Sugar had been traded in the 15th and 16th centuries by Spain and Portugal and the growing demand created the plantation economy, becoming largely responsible for the expansion of Europe’s transatlantic trade in Africans in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Consumerism rose through the consumption of sweet foods and sweetened drinks such as tea and coffee. In 1700 there was an annual influx of 17000 enslaved people from Africa to North and South America and by 1810 that rate had more than tripled. 

During the 1800s three out of ten enslaved people transported to the Caribbean were brought to work on enslaved labour sugar plantations. About 4.5 million Africans were enslaved in the Caribbean (47% of the 10 million enslaved peoples of Africa brought to the Americas). Many more (around 2 million) had died on the slaving ships on the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean. The enslaved labour sugar plantation system also saw an environmental impact on these lands as forests were cleared to make room for the sugar beet plants. After 1834 (the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in the UK in 1833) British plantation owners used a mix of indentured and free Black labourers.