Barbados Chattel Houses
Barbados was settled by the same gentleman planters who settled the colony of South Carolina. A lot of connections exist between these two places, from the Bajan dialect that bears a close resemblance to the South Carolina Gullah dialect, to farming practices that were developed in Barbados and transferred to South Carolina plantations. But the most visible is the similarity in architecture. The jalousie windows and sweeping verandas that grace grand old South Carolina houses also decorate many Bajan homes. Georgian and Victorian style great houses line streets in Bridgetown and Charleston. However,the most distinctive Bajan architecture is purely Caribbean. The chattel house is basically an old school mobile home. Simple wooden houses placed on limestone blocks, chattel houses are designed to be taken apart in a day. The term comes from the days when plantation workers journeyed from different estates, working the fields and leasing the land that they lived on. Their mova...