Making Sugar LoavesThe British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA). Irrigation networks had to be built and kept clear. Focuses on sugar production in the Caribbean, the destruction of indigenous people, and the suffering of the Africans who grew the crop. Revolts on slave ships cascaded into rebellions on plantations and in towns. He part-owned at least two slave ships, the Samuel and the Hope. Many plantation owners preferred to import new slaves rather than providing the means and conditions for the survival of their existing slaves. The plantation relied almost solely on an imported enslaved workforce, and became an agricultural factory concentrating on one profitable crop for sale. A series of watercolour paintings by Lieutenant Lees, dated to the 1780s are one exception. UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz, United Nations Outreach Programme on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery, Barbados in the Caribbean became the first large-scale colony populated by a black majority, The Caribbean has the lowest youth enrolment in higher education in the hemisphere, The rate of increase in the occurrence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension within the adult population, mostly people of African descent, was galloping, campaign for reparations for the crimes of slavery and colonialism. It is labelled as the Negro Ground attached to Jessups plantation, high up the mountain. The planters increasingly turned to buying enslaved men, women and children who were brought from Africa. Sugar and Slavery. The Caribbean is home to some of the most economically and socially exploited people of modernity. Enslaved Africans used some of this free time to cultivate garden plots close to their houses, as well as in nearby provision grounds. This structural transformation of the world market was the condition for the development of the sugar plantation and slave labor in Cuba during the first half of the nineteenth century. In the year 1706 there was a severe drought which caused most food crops to fail. ST GEORGE'S, Grenada, CMC - Surviving relatives of a family in the United Kingdom who in the 18th and 19th centuries jointly owned approximately 1,200 slaves on six plantations in Grenada on Monday apologised for the actions of their forefathers. It is frequently observed that 60 per cent of the black population in the region over the age of 60 years is afflicted with type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Sugar production was important on a number of Caribbean islands in the late 1600s. The houses have hipped roofs, thickly thatched with cane trash. In Islamic slave-owning societies, castration and infibulation curtailed slave reproduction. Slaves on sugar plantations in the Caribbean had a hard time of it, since growing and processing sugarcane was backbreaking work that killed many. With profits at only around 10-15% for sugar plantation owners, most, however, would have lived more modest lives and only the owners of very large or multiple estates lived a life of luxury. McDonald, Roderick A. Let's Take Action Towards the Sustainable Development Goals. A watchtower was a feature of many plantations to ensure work schedules and rates were kept and to guard against external attacks. Sugar plantations in Brazil were dominated by African slavery by the mid-16th century. First they had to survive the appalling conditions on the voyage from West Africa, known as theMiddle Passage. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Most Caribbean societies possess large or majority populations of African descendants. Proceeds are donated to charity. In recent years, a third source of information, archaeology, has begun to contribute to our understanding. A law was passed in Nevis in 1682 to force plantation owners to provide land for food crops to prevent starving slaves from stealing food. Nearly 350,000 Africans were transported to the Leeward Islands by 1810,but many died on the voyage through disease or ill treatment; some were driven by despair to commit suicide by jumping into the sea. Workers rolled the barrels to the shore, and loaded them onto small craft for transport to larger, oceangoing vessels. Consequently, after 1660 very few new white servants reached St Kitts or Nevis; the Black enslaved Africans had taken their place. Critically, the Caribbean was where chattel slavery took its most extreme judicial form in the instrument known as the Slave Code, which was first instituted by the English in Barbados. Plantation life and labor were difficult and . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 12-22. The relevance of Beckfords thesis remains striking today, and conversations about the legitimacy of democracy still reverberate around his research. One painting illustrates a slave village near the foot of Brimstone Hill. Those with the skills to operate and maintain the machinery in sugar mills were much in demand, especially their chief supervisor, the sugar master, who enjoyed a high salary. By the early 18th century when sugar production was fully established nearly 80% of the population was Black. When slavery was abolished across the British empire in 1833, the family received 4,293 12s 6d, a very large sum in 1836, in compensation for freeing 189 enslaved people. Critically, the Caribbean was where chattel slavery took its most extreme judicial form in the instrument known as the Slave Code, which was first instituted by the English in Barbados. On the Caribbean island of Barbados, in 1643, there were 18,600 white farmers, their families and servants. There were the challenges of growing any kind of crops in tropical climates in the pre-modern era: soil exhaustion, storm damage, and losses to pests - insects that bored into the roots of sugarcane plants were particularly bothersome. Whatever the crop, labouring life was dictated by the cycles of the agricultural year. It was not uncommon to give new arrivals a whipping just to show them, if they had not already realised, that their owners had no more sympathy for their situation than the cattle they owned. Slave villages represent an important but little-known part of the Caribbean landscape. (61), Colonial Sugar Cane ManufacturingUnknown Artist (Public Domain). Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. All of these factors conspired to create a situation where plantations changed ownership with some frequency. Institutional racism continues to be a critical force explaining the persistence of white economic dominance. By the end of the 15th century, the plantation owners knew they were on to a good thing, but their number one problem was labour. The plan of the 18th century slave village at Jessups is a good example of this kind of layout. The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the 'white gold' that fueled slavery. . The sugar plantations of the region, owned and operated primarily by English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Danish colonists, consumed black life as quickly as it was imported. The slaves were brought from Africa to work on the plantations in the Caribbean and South America. At the top of plantation slave communities in the sugar colonies of the Caribbean were skilled men, trained up at the behest of white managers to become sugar boilers, blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, masons and drivers. By the mid-16th century, Brazil had become the worlds largest producer of sugar. Prints depicting enslaved people producing sugar in Antigua, 1823. However, they are integral in creating a direct link between past and present because villages represent the homes of the ancestors of many modern people in the islands today. The team, Jon Brett and Rob Philpott, with colleagues Lorraine Darton and Eleanor Leech, surveyed a number of sugar plantations in the parishes of St Mary Cayon and Christ Church Nichola Town. A hat hangs on the wall, a group of large pots stands on a shelf and there is a small bed in the corner. Slaves lived in simple mud huts or wooden shacks with little more than matting for beds and only rudimentary furniture. A roof of plantain-leaves with a few rough boards, nailed to the coarse pillars which support it, form the whole building.. Examining the archaeology of slavery in the Caribbean sugar plantations. Since abandonment, their locations have been forgotten and in many cases leave no trace above ground. The first type consists of accounts from travel writers or former residents of the West Indies from the 17th and 18th centuries who describe slave houses that they saw in the Caribbean; the second are contemporary illustrations of slave housing. John Pinney on Nevis gave his boilers check shirts if the sugar was good, while enslaved women who gave birth were presented with baby linen (Pares 1950, 132). The refined sugar then had to be dried thoroughly if it was to be as white and pure as the top merchants demanded. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. The spread of sugar 'plantations' in the Caribbean created a great need for workers. The sugar plantations grew exponentially so that 90% of the island consisted of sugar plantations by the year 1680. Finally it can also provide information on their dress and fashions, through the recovery and analysis of items such as dress fittings, buttons and beads. Before the arrival and devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Caribbean region was buckling under the strain of proliferating, chronic non-communicable diseases. Once cut, the stalks were taken to a mill, where the juice was extracted. Footnote 65 Through their work planning slave trading voyages and corresponding with RAC employees in West Africa and the Caribbean, serving on the directorate of the RAC would have provided these merchants with useful business contacts and knowledge pertaining to West African commerce, the Caribbean sugar trade, and plantation management. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. Barbados, nearing a half million slaves to work the cane fields in the heyday of Caribbean sugar exportation, used 90 percent of its arable land to grow sugar cane. The enslaved population soared, quadrupling over a 20-year period to 125,000 souls in the mid-19th century. Six million out of them worked in sugarcane plantations. African slaves became increasingly sought after to work in the unpleasant conditions of heat and humidity. In 1820-21 James Hakewill drew a number of sugar plantations in Jamaica showing the slave villages in several cases set within wooded areas, which served not only as shade but also as fruit trees to provide food for the enslaved populations. The rate of increase in the occurrence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension within the adult population, mostly people of African descent, was galloping. However, it was in Brazil and the Caribbean that demand for African slaves took off in spectacular fashion. UN Photo/Manuel Elias, Detail from the "Ark of Return", the permanent memorial honouring the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, located at UN Headquarters in New York. The sugar plantations of the region, owned and operated primarily by English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Danish colonists, consumed black life as quickly as it was imported. View images from this item (3) William Clark was a 19th century British artist who was invited to Antigua by some of its planters. Submitted by Mark Cartwright, published on 06 July 2021. However, plantation life was terrible. It is for this and related reasons that the Caribbean has emerged as an epicenter of the global reparatory justice movement. In this way, black enslavement became the primary institution for social and economic governance in the hemisphere. Its campaign for reparations for the crimes of slavery and colonialism has served as a template for the Global South in seeking a level playing field for development within the international economic order. An infestation of tiny insects would descend on the luscious green sugar plants and turn them black. Jamaica has been by far the major producer of sugar, but The Lesser Antilles had the advantage of a shorter sea trip to deliver produce and rum to the . They are close to the animal enclosures, so the labourers could keep watch over the livestock, and set below the plantation house which stands on a small hill. Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email. In parts of Brazil and the Caribbean, where African slave labor on sugar plantations dominated the economy, most enslaved people were put to work directly or indirectly in the sugar industry. One hut is cut away to reveal the inside. These were some of the most skilled laborers, doing some of the . Higman, Barry W. Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Illustration of slaves cutting sugar cane on a southern plantation in the 1800s. Fifty years ago, in 1972, George Beckford, an Economics Professor at the University of the West Indies, published a seminal monograph entitledPersistent Poverty, in which he explained the impoverishment of the black majority in the Caribbean in terms of the institutional mechanism of the colonial economy and society. Part of a feature about the archaeology of slavery on St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, from the International Slavery Museum's website. Books Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. Contemporary illustrations show that slave villages were often wooded. 1995 "Slave life on Caribbean sugar plantations: Some unanswered questions," in Palmi, Stephan, ed., Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery. Sugar processing on the English colony of Antigua, drawing by William Clark, 1823, courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. . Copyright 2023 United Nations in the Caribbean, Caption: The "Ark of Return", the permanent memorial to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, located at the Visitors' Plaza of United Nations Headquarters in New York. Although the enslaved Africans were permitted provision grounds and gardens in the villages to grow food, these were not enough to stop them suffering from starvation in times of poor harvests. slaves on the growing sugar plantations during the 1650s.4 To be sure, . Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sugar_plantations_in_the_Caribbean&oldid=1142688340, This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 21:15. Enslaved Africans were also much less expensive to maintain than indenturedEuropean servants or paid wage labourers. The Slave Codewent viral across the Caribbean, and ultimately became the model applied to slavery in the North American English colonies that would become the United States. In addition to using the produce to supplement their own diet, slaves sold or exchanged it, as well as livestock such as chickens or pigs, in local markets. The enslaved labourers could also purchase goods in the market place, through the sale of livestock, produce from their provision grounds or gardens, or craft items they had manufactured. Caribbean islands became sugar-production machines, powered by slave labor. Those engaged in the slave trade were primarily driven by the huge profits to be gained, both in the Caribbean and at home. Within a few decades, Brazil had become the worlds largest producer of sugar. In Barbados for example, the houses on some plantations were upgraded to wooden cabins covered with shingles (thin wooden tiles) and placed in a common yard to encourage family relations to develop. The sugar plantations of the region, owned and operated primarily by English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Danish colonists, consumed black life as quickly as it was imported. Europeans introduced sugarcane to the New World in the 1490s. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean 1807-1834 (1984; Mona, Jamaica, 1995), 217-18. If they survived the horrific conditions of transportation, slaves could expect a hard life indeed working on plantations in the . Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. It was the worst form of sugar blight, capable of ruining a crop within a matter of days. St Kitts is probably the only island in the West Indies that has a map showing the location of all the slave villages. Over time, as the populations of colonies evolved, mixed-race European-locals, freed slaves, and sometimes even slaves were employed in these technical positions. As cane was planted each month in one part of a plantation, the harvesting was an ongoing process for much of the year, with the more intense periods requiring slaves to work night and day. Madeira, a group of unpopulated volcanic islands in the North Atlantic, had rich soil and a beneficial climate for growing sugar cane all year round. 1700: About 50 slaves per plantation 1730: About 100 slaves per plantation Jamaica 1740: average estate had 99 slaves of the island's slave population was employed because of sugar 1770: average estate had 204 slaves Saint Domingue More diversified economy Harshest slave system in the Americas Barbados D. Slaves were treated humanely on the sea journey to the Americas to make sure the maximum number survived. Finally they were sold to local buyers. As they are virtually invisible on the landscape today, village locations are particularly liable to destruction or development, unlike the more substantial stone constructed houses of the European plantation owners. They are small low rectangular, one room structures, under roofs thatched with leaves. The British planter Bryan Edwards observed that in Jamaica slave cottages were; seldom placed with much regard to order, but, being always intermingled with fruit-trees, particularly the banana, the avocado-pear, and the orange (the Negroes own planting and property) they sometimes exhibit a pleasing and picturesque appearance.. This industry and the slave trade made British ports and merchants involved very wealthy. By the early 18th century enslaved Africans trading in their own produce dominated the market on Nevis. Before the slave trade ended, the Caribbean had taken approximately 47 percent of the 10 million African slaves brought to the Americas. And in every sugar parish, black people outnumbered whites. Another constant worry was unfamiliar tropical diseases which often proved fatal with the colonists, and particularly new arrivals. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Some owners permitted marriages between slaves - formal or informal - while others actively separated couples. Some 12 to 20 million Africans were enslaved in the western hemisphere after an Atlantic voyage of 6 to 10 weeks. Blocks of sugar were packed into hogsheads for shipment. Images of Caribbean Slavery (Coconut Beach, Florida: Caribbean Studies Press, 2016). Popular and grass-roots activism have created a legacy of opposition to racism and ethnic dominance. Revolts on slave ships cascaded into rebellions on plantations and in towns. In William Smiths day, the market in Charlestown was held from sunrise to 9am on Sunday mornings where the Negroes bring Fowls, Indian Corn, Yams, Garden-stuff of all sorts, etc. They typically lived in family units in rudimentary villages on the plantations where their freedom of movement was severely restricted. Here they were given a number of basic lessons in Portuguese and Christianity, both of which made them more valuable if they survived the voyage to the Americas. With household slaves and personal attendants, the wealthiest white Europeans could afford a life of ease surrounded by the best things money could buy such as a large villa, the finest clothing, exotic furniture of the best materials, and imported artworks by Flemish masters. In the St Kitts plantations, the slave villages were usually located downwind of the main house from the prevailing north-easterly wind. The many legacies of over 300 years of slavery weighing on popular culture and consciousness persist as ferociously debilitating factors. While United Nations police, justice and corrections personnel represent less than 10 per cent of overall deployments in peace operations, their activities remain fundamental to the achievement of sustainable peace and security, as well as for the successful implementation of the mandates of such missions. In Charlestown today there is a place now known as the Slave Market. 6, p. 174]The Caribbean is a region of islands and coastal territory in the Americas that is roughly defined by . Not only do we pay for our servers, but also for related services such as our content delivery network, Google Workspace, email, and much more. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans.After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other . A striking feature of the village area is the dense mass of bushes and trees, including coconut palms. Washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp (Privacy Policy & Terms of Use), African American History Curatorial Collective, The Wreck and Rescue of an Immigrant Ship, Disaster! His design shows one or two rows of slave houses set downwind of the estate house. Archaeology is often the only way to recover detailed information on the possessions of the enslaved workers, since the items were rarely recorded in documents. There were many instances of slave uprisings resulting in the deaths of the plantation owner, their family, and slaves who had remained loyal to their owner. Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn (1737-1808), owned six sugar plantations in Jamaica and was an outspoken anti-abolitionist. However, it was also in the planters own interests to avoid slave rebellions as well as to avoid the need to transport fresh slaves from Africa by increasing the birth rate amongst the existing enslaved population through better living standards. Passed in 1661, this comprehensive law defined Africans as heathens and brutes not fit to be governed by the same laws as Christians. New Orleans became the Walmart of people-selling. Capitalism and black slavery were intertwined. By the census of 1678 the Black population had risen to 3849 against a white population of 3521. The liquid was then poured into large moulds and left to set to create conical sugar 'loaves', each 'loaf' weighing 15-20 lbs (6.8 to 9 kg). Several descriptions survive from the island of Barbados. World History Encyclopedia. Michael Tadman, 'The demographic costs of sugar: debates on slave societies and natural increase in the Americas', American Historical Review, 105.5 (2000); B.W. A team of British archaeologists studied the slave villages in two areas of St Kitts in 2004 and 2005, using the detailed McMahon map to locate the sites. In part the Act was a response to the increasingly powerful arguments of abolitionists. The lack of nutrition, hard working conditions, and regular beatings and whippings meant that the life expectancy of slaves was very low, and the annual mortality rate on plantations was at least 5%. On the St Kitts plantations, the slave villages were usually located downwind of the main house from the prevailing north-easterly wind. Over one million Indian indentured workers went to sugar plantations from 1835 to 1917, 450,000 to Mauritius, 150, 000 to East Africa and Natal, and 450,000 to South America and the Caribbean. An overview of sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Some 40 per cent of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Caribbean Islands, which, in the seventeenth century, surpassed Portuguese Brazil as the principal market for enslaved labour. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. Capitalism and black slavery were intertwined. World History Encyclopedia. The Caribbean is well positioned to discharge this diplomatic obligation to the world in the aftermath of its own tortured history and long journey towards justice. Rice plantations rivalled sugar for the arduousness of the work and the harshness of the working environment. Another slave village stands beside a fenced compound, connected with the fort. The Amelioration Act of 1798 improved conditions for slaves, forcing plantation owners to provide clothes, food, medical treatment and basic education, as well as prohibiting severe and cruel punishment. Often parents were separated from children, and husbands from wives. Some 5 million enslaved Africans were taken to the Caribbean, almost half of whom were brought to the British Caribbean (2.3 million). Finally, states imposed taxes on sugar. Others lay in the base of valleys, such as The Spring, beside a much steeper gut or gully, where access for laden carts of sugar cane was difficult. Brazil was the world's first sugar plantation in 1518, and it was the leading exporter of sugar to Europe by the late 1500s. Tasks ranged from clearing land, planting cane, and harvesting canes by hand, to manuring and weeding. We do not know whether this was the place where enslaved Africans were sold on arriving in Nevis or whether it is where slaves used to sell their produce on Sundays. They were little more than huts, with a single storey and thatched with cane trash. The UNChronicleisnot an official record. The sugar plantations and mills of Brazil and later the West Indies devoured Africans. He also planted coconut and breadfruit trees for his enslaved labourers (Pares 1950, 127). To save transportation costs, plantations were located as near as possible to a port or major water route. Provision grounds were areas of land often of poor quality, mountainous or stony, and often at some distance from the villages which plantation owners set aside for the enslaved Africans to grow their own food, such as sweet potatoes, yams and plantains. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. Current forms of slavery and extreme social oppression are now identified more clearly and treated with similar public and policy opposition as traditional forms. Sugar and Slavery. Wars with other Europeans were another threat as the Spanish, Dutch, British, French, and others jostled for control of the New World colonies and to expand their trade interests in the Old one. The region can and must be the incubator for a new global leadership that celebrates cultural plurality, multi-ethnic magnificence, and the domestication of equal human and civil rights for all as a matter of common sense and common living. Extreme social and racial inequality is a legacy of slavery in the region that continues to haunt and hinder the development efforts of regional and global institutions. This voyage was called the Middle Passage, and was notorious for its brutality and inhumaneness. Last week, leading figures in the Caribbean Community's Reparations Commission described the Drax Hall plantation as a "killing field" and a "crime scene" from the tens of thousands of .