A Vagabond in Paradise, Thomas Verney in Barbados

In early 1639, Thomas Verney drafted a letter to his father in England about his new life on the island colony of Barbados in the West Indies. Settled in 1627, the island quickly became the richest of Britain's possessions. Because there are few descriptions of the colony's earliest years, this letter of Verney's and his subsequent correspondence with family members about his experiences on the island provide important information. His vivid description of the island's climate and abundance, the character of its settlers, and the needs of successful planters help explain how Barbados both attracted and repulsed Englishmen in the seventeenth century. Ironically, this valuable insight comes from an ordinarily unreliable source, a man one historian of the Verney family charitably called a picturesque vagabond.