Captive Passage - Arrival: Life in the Americas
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Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the AmericasSugar Production in the English Caribbean
Sugar and Slaves

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Arrival: Life in the AmericasPreference for AfricansThe Slave Markets
European RewardsSlave Populations in the AmericasThe Ships Return to EuropeEconomics
Sugar IntroductionSlavery in North AmericaReligionSilver Mines of South America

Sugar Production in the English Caribbean

Sugar production was a labor-intensive process that also required good timing, good weather, and good luck. Plantation owners were at once farmers, factory owners, and traders. They commanded large areas of land and an equally large labor force that was made up primarily of enslaved Africans. Because of the need for intense fertilization, sugar planters also had to maintain large herds of livestock to meet the demand. The mills, boiling houses, and distilleries that were required for sugar production were not prohibitively expensive. The cane fields, livestock, and slave labor, however, were the costliest and most valuable parts of a sugar plantation. Sugar production was therefore not an industry to be entered into lightly, but the rewards for a successful plantation owner were substantial.

Brick Kiln Plantation, Nevis, W.I.
Brick Kiln Plantation, Nevis, W.I.
Sugar cane takes between fourteen to eighteen months to ripen, but once it is harvested, it must be processed within a few hours to keep it from fermenting and thus spoiling. Because of the intense nature of sugar processing, planters would often stagger their plantings so that the harvest could be spread out over several months. The moist, tropical climate of the Caribbean allowed the cane to grow best when planted between the wet months of June and November and to be harvested in the drier months between January and May.
Golden Rock Plantation, Nevis, W.I
Golden Rock Plantation, Nevis, W.I

Once the cane had matured, slaves would cut it, bundle it onto pack animals, and transport it to the mills. The cane root left behind would sprout again and mature much more rapidly, allowing a second, and sometimes even a third harvest. These later growths, called ratoon cane, generally only yielded about half as much processed sugar as the first growth - which in the 17thand 18thcenturies could yield around one ton of sugar per acre (20th-century techniques yield nearly five tons per acre).

At the mill, the cane was crushed between iron rollers powered by water, wind or cattle. The cane juice would flow into vats where it would be clarified, skimmed, and then ladled into successively smaller copper pots where the heated juice eventually turned to a thick syrup. The syrup was brought to the point of crystallization, cooled, then packed into hogsheads or clay pots where it crystallized into muscovado, or brown sugar. The substance that dripped out of these containers was molasses, which could be sold as a cheap sweetener, fed to slaves and livestock, or mixed with the skimmings from the first boiling to produce rum (which probably got its name from the Latin saccarhum, meaning sugar).

New River Plantation, Nevis, W.I.
New River Plantation, Nevis, W.I.
Rum was the most profitable by-product of the sugar process and became a major export item in its own right. The Muscovado sugar could be sold for further refining in England, or refined on the plantation. But refined sugar commanded the highest price. Naturally, it took much longer to produce - usually four months, as the sugar had to remain sealed in a clay pot until the molasses had been thoroughly dissolved out of the sugar through moisture in the clay.


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