Caribbean History From
Colonialism to Independence
AM217
David Lambert
Lecture: Plantations in the
Atlantic world
Tuesday 3rd November,
11am-12pm
‘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.
Plantations in the Atlantic world
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Defining a plantation society
Factories in the field
Plantation societies
Plantations in the wider world
Plantations as modern spaces
Defining a plantation society
• Specialised ‘monocrop’ production undertaken solely for (foreign)
sale
• Plantation monopoly over major factors of production and privileged
access to auxiliary infrastructural and institutional resources
• Export orientation, capital specificity and rigidity, foreign
‘metropolitan’ ownership and/or control, and economic, political and
psychological dependence on the mother country
• Import dependence
• Masses of unskilled labour
• A caste system based on race and colour (and white bias)
• Concentration of power in a tiny elite; authoritarian, highly
centralized government (‘plantocracy’)
(from George Beckford, Persistent Poverty, 1972)
Factories in the field
Mid-19th century Cuban plantations
Mid-19th century Cuban plantations
Holing a Cane-Piece
Planting the Sugar Cane
Cutting the Sugar Cane
A Mill Yard
Exterior of a Boiling House
Interior of a Boiling House
Exterior of a Distillery
Interior of a Distillery
Shipping Sugar
Plantation as agro-industrial space
1. Use of modern technology: windmills
(1640s), steam engines (1790s) and
railways (1840s)
Plantation as agro-industrial space
1. Use of modern technology: windmills
(1640s), steam engines (1790s) and
railways (1840s)
2. Agricultural techniques (‘holing’ and
fertilizers)
3. Spatial organisation
Spatial organisation
Plantation as agro-industrial space
1. Use of modern technology: windmills
(1640s), steam engines (1790s) and
railways (1840s)
2. Agricultural techniques (‘holing’ and
fertilizers)
3. Spatial organisation
4. Disciplined labour regime
Gang labour
Labour supervision
Punishment
Plantation as agro-industrial space
1. Use of modern technology: windmills
(1640s), steam engines (1790s) and
railways (1840s)
2. Agricultural techniques (‘holing’ and
fertilizers)
3. Spatial organisation
4. Disciplined labour regime
Defining a plantation society
• Specialised ‘monocrop’ production undertaken solely for (foreign)
sale
• Plantation monopoly over major factors of production and privileged
access to auxiliary infrastructural and institutional resources
• Export orientation, capital specificity and rigidity, foreign
‘metropolitan’ ownership and/or control, and economic, political and
psychological dependence on the mother country
• Import dependence
• Masses of unskilled labour
• A caste system based on race and colour (and white bias)
• Concentration of power in a tiny elite; authoritarian, highly
centralized government (‘plantocracy’)
(from George Beckford, Persistent Poverty, 1972)
Caribbean ports
House of Assembly, Jamaica
Above: Bryan Edwards
(1743-1800)
Right: George Hibbert
(1757-1837)
Plantation inputs (and outputs)
Capitalist development
- Plantation colonies produced surpluses of
capital for investment.
Capitalist development
Britain was accumulating great wealth from the triangular
trade. The increase in consumption of goods called forth
by that trade inevitably drew in its train the development of
the productive power of the country. This industrial
expansion required finance. What man in the first threequarters of the eighteenth century was better able to afford
the ready capital than a West Indian sugar planter or a
Liverpool slave trader?...[T]he investment of profits from
the triangular trade in British industry…supplied part of the
huge outlay for the construction of the vast plants to meet
the needs of the new productive process and the new
markets.
Eric Williams, Capitalism and slavery (1944), p. 98.
Capitalist development
- Plantation colonies produced surpluses of capital
for investment.
- Promoted industrial development, for example…
-
sugar processing industries
industrial technology used on plantations
shipbuilding
manufactured goods to sell in west Africa as part
of the slave trade
Growth of European port cities
The wealth of the plantations
The plantation system which extirpated the yeoman farmers
of the non-Hispanic Antilles and scourged West Africa for
centuries richly rewarded its organizers. The wealth
produced by African slaves on land wrested from Arawak and
Carib Indians flowed into the European metropolises in great
rivers, nourishing infant industry, making possible the
foundation of great families, and supporting the growth and
spread of culture and civilization in the form of universities,
libraries, museums, and symphony orchestras. Plantation
products also did their part for Western civilization. West
Indian tobacco, coffee, sugar, and rum, together with Indian
tea, were effective fare for factory workers of Britain and
France, quelling their hunger pangs and numbing their
outrage.
Sidney Mintz, quoted in B. Richardson, The Caribbean in the
wider world, 1492-1992 (1992), p. 39.
Capitalist development
- Plantation colonies produced surpluses of capital
for investment.
- Promoted industrial development, for example…
-
sugar processing industries
industrial technology used on plantations
shipbuilding
manufactured goods to sell in west Africa as part
of the slave trade
- Stimulation for new industrial working class in
Europe.
Sugar and the ‘big fix’
1. Physiological effects – this stimulant was favoured in the
industrial era because it ‘provided quick energy…when
more intense and prolonged performance was
demanded from the human body’ (Eric Wolf, 1982: 333).
It may also have been addictive.
2. New patterns of consumption – New higher-class
patterns of sociability and consumption emerged (e.g.
coffeehouses and teashops) and were emulated across
society.
New patterns of sociability and
consumption: Tea and coffee with sugar
Social emulation across society
Sugar and the ‘big fix’
1. Physiological effects – this stimulant was favoured in the
industrial era because it ‘provided quick energy…when
more intense and prolonged performance was
demanded from the human body’ (Eric Wolf, 1982: 333).
It may also have been addictive.
2. New patterns of consumption – New higher-class
patterns of sociability and consumption emerged (e.g.
coffeehouses and teashops) and were emulated by
others.
3. Socialising functions – Sidney Mintz argues that ‘tea
time’ and ‘coffee breaks’ helped to condition European
working people to the time-discipline demanded by the
industrial revolution.
International politics and the
struggle for regional dominance
• Although the Spain was the early pace-setter in the
colonisation of the Caribbean, other powers (the Dutch, the
English and the French) followed, preying on its possessions
(e.g. Jamaica in 1655).
• European metropolitan governments sought to control transAtlantic trade with their colonies by excluding foreign
merchants (part of the system of ‘mercantilism’), e.g. the
English Navigation Acts (1651-73).
• This exacerbated intra-imperial tensions and led to conflict,
e.g. the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-to-late 17th century.
• These wars became increasingly global in character, e.g. the
Seven Years’ War (1756-63).
• Caribbean colonies were tempting targets during war and
important bargaining chips in peace negotiations.
Jamaica
The capture of Jamaica, 1655
• Jamaica, which had been
originally colonised by
Spain, was seized by the
English Admiral Penn in
1655.
• Spain
formally
ceded the island to
England in 1670.
International politics and the
struggle for regional dominance
• Although the Spain was the early pace-setter in the
colonisation of the Caribbean, other powers (the Dutch, the
English and the French) followed, preying on its possessions
(e.g. Jamaica in 1655).
• European metropolitan governments sought to control transAtlantic trade with their colonies by excluding foreign
merchants (part of the system of ‘mercantilism’), e.g. the
English Navigation Acts (1651-73).
• This exacerbated intra-imperial tensions and led to conflict,
e.g. the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-to-late 17th century.
• These wars became increasingly global in character, e.g. the
Seven Years’ War (1756-63).
• Caribbean colonies were tempting targets during war and
important bargaining chips in peace negotiations.
Martinique
The Caribbean as a theatre of war:
Martinique
1625-1762 – held by the French after its initial
colonisation
1762-1763 – captured by the British during the
Seven Years’ War (the first global conflict)
1763-1794 – returned to France after the Treaty of
Paris (1763)
1794-1802 – re-captured by the British during the
French Revolutionary Wars
1802-1809 – returned to France
1809-1814 – re-captured by the British during the
Napoleonic Wars
1814 onwards – returned to France
The Treaty of
Paris (1763)
- Ends the Seven Years’
War (1756-63).
- Britain emerges as
world’s leading empire.
- The
deal
involves
France giving up its
North American territory
and Britain returning
Guadeloupe
and
Martinique to France.
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)
Nelson’s Column, Barbados:
Celebrating victory in the Caribbean
International politics and the
struggle for regional dominance
• Although the Spain was the early pace-setter in the
colonisation of the Caribbean, other powers (the Dutch, the
English and the French) followed, preying on its possessions
(e.g. Jamaica in 1655).
• European metropolitan governments sought to control transAtlantic trade with their colonies by excluding foreign
merchants (part of the system of ‘mercantilism’), e.g. the
English Navigation Acts (1651-73).
• This exacerbated intra-imperial tensions and led to conflict,
e.g. the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-to-late 17th century.
• These wars became increasingly global in character, e.g. the
Seven Years’ War (1756-63).
• Caribbean colonies were tempting targets during war and
important bargaining chips in peace negotiations.
Plantations as modern spaces
[S]ince the inauguration of the slave plantation
West Indians were, above all else, a modern
people. They lived in subjugation. But they
experienced modernisation – in the Middle
Passage and on the plantation – at its most
dynamic, at its highest pitch and at its most brutal.
B. Schwarz, West Indian intellectuals in Britain
(2003), p. 5.
Seminar this week:
‘The Slavery Business’
* Room S0.20 *
* We will start on the hour *