Sugar+and+Slaves

Sugar and Slaves Barbados best describes the transformation the sugar caused in the seventeenth century Caribbean. In 1640, Barbados’ main crop was tobacco but by the 1690’s it had switched to sugar. By then the Africans were three times as numerous as the Europeans. Barbados exported 15,000 tons of sugar a year causing it to become the wealthiest and most populous American colony.

By the 1700’s the West Indies replaced Barbados in being the world’s main source of sugar. The expansion of sugar plantations caused a drastic increase in slave trade from Africa. In the first half of the seventeenth century, around 10,000 slaves a year were imported from Africa. In the second half of the century the number raised to 20,000 slaves imported a year. In another century Cuba became another major importer of slaves. This caused African slave trade to be three times larger.

The growing necessity of slaves was due to many causes. Including that Africans were much better suited to do work than Europeans and they also had a slightly higher survival rate from disease. Historian Eric Williams though, rejected the idea that one of these reasons was due to prejudices. He stated “slavery was not born of racism rather; racism was the consequences of slavery.” He also suggested it could have been due to lower cost of African slaves.

African slaves were not cheap though, in fact they were far from it. Tobacco planters preferred indentured Europeans because they cost half as much. Poor Europeans were willing to work in order to get to the Americas and buy their own land after their services. In 1750, rich speculators raised the prices of land, driving the Europeans to Northern American colonies where the land was still cheap. So, Caribbean sugar planters began to use African slaves.

As sugar prices rose it became easier to buy African slaves. They also lived around seven years after arrival. This was a much better investment because Europeans usually only had three to four year contracts. The Dutch helped supply planters with slaves. Rising demands for slaves drove sale prices up, favoring large plantations of small ones.

By Megan Wagner