"Snook's Lives of Celebrated Men: Flobby MacSquelsh" are sketches narrating the life of Flobby Macsquelsh, the fictional profligate son of a Barbados planter. The story is told on 10 pages (22 x 32 cm) and divided into 11 parts, each part consisting of an ink sketch and a paragraph of text.
MacSquelsh is referred to as the "hero" in the story. He is depicted as a fat man known for his "intense gluttony." As a child, witnessing the whipping of a slave brings Flobby "intense delight." As an adult, he visits Europe and is placed in the distinguished 179th Highland Rifles corps. He engages in heavy drinking, attends balls, and meets a woman but later has "deserted and undid her." He is unfit for hunting, as he loses control of his horse, kills two hunting hounds, and even loses his umbrella. The story ends with Flobby returning to Barbados, where he successfully proposes marriage to a "Lady of Colour" and inherits his father's plantation property. This satirical story is likely a commentary of the behaviors of the planter elite in the West Indies after the abolition of slavery.
England occupied Barbados in 1625, and in the early years, settlers mainly cultivated cotton and tobacco. Over the next century, sugar cane became dominant in Barbados and throughout the West Indies, supported by slave labor. The island was divided into large plantations, run by white elites with strong connections to the British aristocracy and Parliament. By the 1720s, Jamaica had surpassed Barbados as the most prominent island in the sugar industry, but sugar cane remained profitable on the island. The Atlantic slave trade ended in 1807, and slavery abolished in British holdings in 1838. Following abolition, white elites continued to run Barbados, and the island remained a British colony until 1966.
