Rise of the Sugar Plantation Complex

Cyprus

• The main center for the production of sugar consumed in Europe
• Sugar production under Western control led to a change in institutional forms

Mediterranean

Slave Trade

Mediterranean Slave trade

• The slave trade was a common way of finding immigrants to work in “expanding” industries and most of the workers were not slaves
• Slavery was not a large part of the economic life within Mediterranean world (most popular around the 18th century)
• 17th Century
• Slavery did become more common
• Slaves were more of domestic servants and rarely were workers in agriculture in either Muslim or Chrisitan Mediterranean

Mature Plantation Complex

Full-Blown Plantation Complex

• Proportion of slaves to a total population
• Economically; specialized in production for sale at a distance
• A historian can look at past examples of mature plantation
• Ex: “Cotton Kingdom” 1830-1860
• Search for societies that combined specialized production with a very intense slave regime
• Ex: Jamaica, Barbados, Saint Domingue

Sustainibility

• The most productive labor was forced labor (As most people were slaves) Ex: Russia

• To be sustainable, must be sustained by a constant stream of new population just to maintain numbers.

The Atlantic Islands

• Easily accessed and the best environment and climate for sugar cultivation and growth
• Climate varied from Mediterranean like to semidesert to wet tropics
• Attracted Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries as islands were crucial to military strength
• Foreign influences from Spain, Portugal, and Italy
• Became a small matter to carry the sugar industry across the ocean to the American colonies

The Azores

• Islands discovered between 1427 and 1431 located due west of Portugal, with a climate much like that of mainland Portugal

• European settlers grew crops such as wheat, wine, and olives making them true colonies, not plantation colonies.

The Madeiras

The Madeiras

• Two habitable islands and a number of smaller islets further south, the largest island being Madeira proper and the smallest, PortoSanto.

• The center of European sugar production and brought the plantation regime from the Mediterranean to the New World.

• Sugar planting began in 1455 and mills were crucial to sugar cane and by 1500 dominated the northern European market

The Canaries

The Canaries

• These islands discovered in the 1320s are located 250 miles south closer to the African coast were crucial to westward movement of the sugar economy

• The geography includes volcanoes and flat and dry lands suitable for sugar.

• The native people, related to Berbers of North Africa were cut off from the mainland, lacking immunities from European diseases and knowledge of metal work soon becoming extinct

Cape Verde

Cape Verde

• These islands discovered by the Portugese in the late 15th century are located west of the Senegal River with a climate ideal for tourism but too dry for sugar

Sao Tome, Fernando Po, Principe, and Annobon

Sao Tome, Fernando Po, Principe, and Annobon

• These islands are located south around the Gulf of Guinea, discovered in 1471 and 1472
• Sao Tome was significant in the 16th century as it was uninhabited and crucial for new sugar industry and the first island where sugar plantation workers were slaves
• When explorers reached Sao Tome using slaves from Africa on sugar estates was well known

Moving Westward

Moving Westward

• Driving force was part expanding european demand for sugar and part technological changes in sugar crushing
• The rise of Genoa shifted emphasis from the eastern basin to the westen basin
• Madeira was key as it gave Portugal the stepping stone to reach Brazil
• By 1500 Madeira sugar dominated the northern European market also selling in Genoa and Istanbul
• Movement to Sao Tome
• Advantages of tropical climate, volcanic soils, and nearby sources of labor
• First place in the Atlantic where plantation workers were mainly slaves
• Served as a model for slave plantations of the Americas

Coming into America

Coming into America

• Once on the Atlantic islands it was not hard to carry the sugar industry to the american colonies
• With movement across the atlantic the industry split into national sections each watched over by foreign influence
• Columbus introduced sugarcane on his second voyage in 1943
• Brazil had many advantages as the voyage from Africa to there took half as long as a voyage to the Carribean
• Due to lack of distraction the portuguese were willing to put in more resources to sugar planting
• By the mid-seventeenth century
• Brazil reached almost ten times the production of the richest sugar colonies