The Codringtons

The profitable, though cruel and unstable, sugar plantation model was exported around the region, driven by a handful of families who often intermarried. James Drax’s sister married Christopher Codrington, a royalist refugee who arrived in Barbados around 1640. Their son, also named Christopher, consolidated his father’s estates in St. John’s parish and at the age of only 29 became deputy governor of Barbados, lauded as a young man of “liberal, debonaire humour.” He introduced measures to restrict alcohol consumption, increase the white population, build schools and hospitals, and attack widespread smuggling.