Caribbean History: From Colonialism to Independence
AM217
Lecture 4: Sugar revolutions
This lecture will examine the creation and development of slave plantation societies
across the Caribbean region and their role in the making of what Joseph Roach calls
the ‘circum-Atlantic world’. It will touch on the development of the plantation system
in Barbados (which had a mid-seventeenth century ‘sugar revolution’).
Lecture structure
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The circum-Atlantic world
Precursors to the Caibbean plantation and early experiments
European settlement of the eastern Caribbean
Case study: The ‘sugar revolution’ in Barbados
Later ‘sugar revolutions’
The circum-Atlantic world
As it emerged from the revolutionized economies of the late seventeenth century,
this world resembled a vortex in which commodities and cultural practices changed
hands many times. The most revolutionary commodity in this economy was human
flesh…[S]lave labour produced huge quantities of the addictive substances (sugar,
coffee, tobacco, and – most insidiously – sugar and chocolate in combination) that
transformed the world economy and financed the industrial revolution…The concept
of a circum-Atlantic world…insists on the centrality of the diasporic and genocidal
histories of Africa and the Americas, North and South, in the creation of the culture of
modernity. In this sense, a New World was not discovered in the Caribbean, but one
was truly invented there.
Joseph Roach, Cities of the dead (1996), p. 4, emphasis added.
‘Sugar revolution’
The term ‘sugar revolution’ has been used for decades to describe the
transformations brought about by sugar, slavery, and plantations. According to
historian Stuart B. Schwartz, as the sugar plantation complex moved westward into
the Caribbean, it brought with it traditions of ‘close attention to economies of scale’
and ‘the institution of regimented gang labor for slaves.’ In all locales, he concludes,
‘the result of the process was a rapid transformation of the regions, often from white
or indigenous to black population, from small farms to large plantations, from sparse
to intensive settlement, and from small farmers and free workers to slaves’.
Hilary Beckles, ‘Servants and Slaves during the 17th-Century Sugar Revolution’,
2011, p. 207.
1
Caribbean History: From Colonialism to Independence
AM217
Map showing ‘Migration of sugar cultivation from Asia into the Atlantic’
Source: David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
(New Haven, 2010).
The ‘sugar revolution’ in Barbados
Chronology of key dates
1536 – Portuguese navigators ‘discover’ an uninhabited island. They name it
‘Barbados’ but do not colonise it
1627 – English colonists arrive with the intention of establishing a permanent
settlement there
1641 – sugarcane cultivation introduced by from Brazil
1647 – first sugar sent from island to England
c.1660 – enslaved Africans form majority of the population
1670s – 65% of all the sugar consumed in England produced in the island
1675 – a plot to overthrow slavery uncovered; the African ringleaders executed
1687 – second plot uncovered
1692 – third plot uncovered
2
Caribbean History: From Colonialism to Independence
AM217
Number
Population of Barbados, 1655-1830
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
1655
1705
1755
1805
Year
Whites
Slaves
3
Free people of colour