This partly imagined scene depicts some of the enslaved workers as happy, smiling people. They are shown moving bundles of sugarcane from the ‘coulice’, a water chute which made it faster to get the cut cane to the mill as the cane juice had to be processed within 24 hours to stop it spoiling.

The large aqueduct fed the waterwheel which powered the mill to crush the sugarcane. The juice flowed into the boiling house into copper pans to be boiled several times. The smoke from the fires is seen rising from this stone building.

This painting was conserved in 2022 with a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund.