Asian traders introduced bananas and plantains to the Island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa during the Christian era and from there they spread to the mainland of Africa where cooks gradually made them a staple across West and Central Africa. The Atlantic slave trade led to the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of Africans into various parts of the Caribbean where served as a cheap source of labor particularly in the sugar industry. In the seventeenth century, most British planters in Barbados fed enslaved Africans rations of potatoes, a thick gruel made from kidney beans and occasionally some meat when an ox died. The slaves hated their rations and loudly protested until their masters added a regular portion of plantains to their meals.
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