Сахарные плантации Карибского бассейна: История и последствия

Mainly in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries

Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. 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 places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European grown sugar beet.

The Portuguese introduced sugar plantations in the 1550s off the coast of their Brazilian settlement colony, located on the island Sao Vincente. As the Portuguese and Spanish maintained a strong colonial presence in the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula amassed tremendous wealth from the cultivation of this cash crop. Other imperial states observed the economic boom catalyzed by the plantation system and began colonizing the remaining American territories, hoping to capitalize on the lucrative cultivation and trade of natural resources. Sugar was the most important crop throughout the Caribbean, although other crops such as coffee, indigo, and rice were also grown. Sugar cane was best grown on relatively flat land near coastal waters, where the soil was naturally yellow and fertile; mountainous parts of the islands were less likely to be used for cane cultivation. The coastal placement of commercial ports gave imperial states a geographic advantage to ship the crop throughout the transatlantic world. Sugar created a unique political ecology, the relationship between labor, profits, and ecological consequences, in the Caribbean. Imperial powers forcefully displaced west African peoples to cultivate sugar using slave labor. By exploiting labor and the natural world, imperial conflicts arose in the Caribbean vying for political and economic control. For example, conflicts among the English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and various indigenous peoples manifested for territorial gain; regarding the region's political ecology, these European states exploited the environment's resources to such an extent that sugar production began to stagnate. Due to the loss of trees, needed for timber in the sugar refinement process, European imperial powers began competing and fighting over the Caribbean during the middle 17th century. Following European settlers’ entry into the Caribbean world, massive demographic changes occurred. Indigenous populations began dying at unprecedented rates due to the influx of old world diseases brought by colonists. Estimates of these population losses vary from 8.4 million to 112.5 million. This extreme diminishment of native populations cleared room for plantation construction and lessened the conflicts between Europeans and indigenous peoples.

Although the sugar trade in the Americas was initially dominated by the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch–Portuguese War would cause a shift which would have knock on effects for the further growth of the sugar trade in the Caribbean and particularly the production of rum (made from sugar cane juice). In 1630, the Dutch seized Recife near Pernambuco in what is today Brazil (the Dutch called this New Holland after they took over) and this territory included some sugar plantations worked by African slaves who had been brought to the territory earlier. Some of the slave plantation owners were Cristão Novo, i. e. "New Christian" Sephardic Jews who had been forced to convert to the Catholic Church. helping to make Barbados the sugar capital of the Caribbean and the rum capital of the world. By 1706, the laws against Jews owning sugar plantations in Barbados has been dropped. As a result, Haiti lost its place as the leading sugar producer in the world. The indigenous populations of the Caribbean were decimated by illness after initial colonization and were left with few numbers. In order to continue production for the crop, Europeans introduced African slaves to the island through the Trans Atlantic slave trade. The time at which this happened varies from island to island. Sugarcane harvesting during the time of colonization in the Caribbean was a labor intensive process. Firstly, it was harvested by hand, and the sucrose inside needed to be harvested quickly to not be spoiled. To extract the juice, it must be chopped, ground, pressed, pounded, or soaked in liquid before it is heated. Once heated, the liquids evaporate until only the crystals remain. Each step is labor intensive and requires technical knowledge and skill. These tasks were performed by enslaved individuals until emancipation. In 1807, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, prohibiting the trade of slaves in the British Empire. This act extended to the Caribbean plantations under British control. Without the labor influx of slaves through the Trans Atlantic slave trade, the system became harder to maintain. Years later, in 1838, more than half a million people in the Caribbean were emancipated from slavery as a result of the 1833 Emancipation Bill.

Slavery on Plantations in the Caribbean involved a series of interconnected relationships and power dynamics between the enslaved and the more elite population on the island. Women were integral in the social dynamic of the plantations and in the labor itself. "There was a gendering of health, wealth and energy on sugar plantations. The majority of field slaves were women and the majority of women worked in the field.”. Women were heavily involved in the labor of the plantations and were also having children and going to work in the fields at the same time. The Newton Slave Burial Ground showed the evidence of this brutality towards enslaved women, "which may point towards greater levels of interpersonal abuse or even domestic violence for women". During the 17th century in the Lesser Antilles, many of the islands in the Lesser Antilles suffered ecological losses after the introduction of monoculture for sugar plantations. On the Caribbean island Nevis in particular, the island was nearly deforested during the mid 1600s and much of the topsoil quality deteriorated as a result of a large influx of plantations. Although these nations have taken measures to mitigate the impacts of the sugar revolution, in some there are still traces of what the environmental historian of the Caribbean and Latin America, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, describes as a "serious deterioration" of the natural environment, with socio economic consequences. The impacts concerning irrigation and pollution of water runoff are seen as the most profound issues in sugar cane cultivation.