The economic revolution – The shift from tobacco to sugar production & its consequences

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

1. Define the phrase ‘sugar revolution’.

2. Discuss three reasons for the change from tobacco cultivation to sugar cultivation.

3. Describe one social, one economic and one political change that accompanied the transition from tobacco cultivation to sugar cultivation.

The sugar revolution in the colonised British Caribbean began in the early 1600s. With the annihilation of the indigenous population and the difficulties with European bonded workers, European planters sought a new source of labour for their agricultural goods. The end result was the use of Africans as chattel slaves. There are two schools of thought as to why the Africans were used as chattel in the Americas. The first centred on the fact that they could be sourced quite cheaply and their labour was easily accessible. You can tie into this assertion as well the fact that slavery was already practised in several African societies. One commodity traded in the trans-Saharan trade was slaves. Slavery was punishment for debt or crime, or the result of inter-tribal war. However, West African slavery prior to the arrival of Europeans was relatively mild, disorganised and localised.

The other school of thought centred on the pigmentation of the Africans. The Africans, due to their darker hue, were viewed as subservient. Additionally, their customs, whether food, dance, languages, music, religious practices, differed significantly from the Europeans. This ‘un-European-ness’ made them ‘ideal’ candidates for servitude in the same measure that this ‘Europeanising’ them was done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Thus, there is the economic or the racial argument purported for the enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean.

THE ‘SUGAR REVOLUTION’

The ‘sugar revolution’ refers to the large-scale shift from tobacco to sugar cane cultivation occurring by the mid-1600s.

The revolution began in the English islands of St Kitts and Barbados, and the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

THE SHIFT FROM TOBACCO PRODUCTION TO SUGAR CANE PRODUCTION

Early European settlers experimented with crops and products such as cotton, coffee, indigo and spices. By the mid-16th century, however, tobacco had become the chief crop in many of the islands. Tobacco became the chief crop as it was:

a) An ideal export crop, since it was not bulky.

b) It was in great demand in Europe.

However, there would be a decline in demand for the product and Caribbean planters needed to find a more feasible crop. These reasons, combined, were responsible for the introduction of sugar cane as a ‘replacement’ crop for Caribbean planters. They included:

■ The commercial viability of sugar. There were many advantages to selling sugar as it was: a) not too bulky, b) it could be transported in small ships, and c) it was not a perishable product.

■ Growing profitability of Caribbean tobacco. In Virginia (British North American colony), John Rolfe mixed several strains of tobacco to create a more potent form. The demand for the product grew, leading to a decline for the Caribbean product.

■ The growing demand for a cheap, alternative sweetener as there was the increased popularity of tea and coffee drinking in Europe, as well as its use in confectioneries. Sugar was a cheap alternative to the more expensive honey, which was the popular sweetener at the time.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE SUGAR REVOLUTION

There were several fundamental changes in the Caribbean as a result of the sugar revolution. The changes were extensive and far-reaching. They profoundly affected the economic conditions, the social structure and the political organisation of the islands. They included:

1. The system of government changed from proprietorship to representative system. Under proprietorship government, an individual or group was granted full rights of self-government. The new system – representative government – differed dramatically as there was the introduction of a governor, appointed by the British government, who administered the colony with officials he (the governor) appointed. This meant that the British government had a direct influence on governance in the various colonies.

2. There was a dramatic shift in the racial demographic of the Caribbean islands. Before the sugar revolution, the population of the islands were predominantly white. It comprised many Europeans who had worked as indentured servants (the French referred to them as engagés) on the tobacco holdings. However, with the introduction of sugar cultivation and the increased demand for workers, enslaved Africans were used on the Caribbean plantations. Thus, the racial composition shifted from being majority white to a majority black (enslaved Africans) population.

3. There was the dramatic increase in size of Caribbean landholdings. Before the sugar revolution, many farmers produced tobacco, which could be done on a small parcel of land. However, sugar cane production was different as large lands were needed to undertake it processing – sugar required expensive buildings, livestock and machinery, and large quantities of land for production. For optimum usage of the large investments in expensive factory equipment, a large supply of raw cane was necessary. With the increase in the size of landholdings, this meant that many smallholders’ lands were condensed and the amount of landholdings in the various Caribbean islands declined dramatically.