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 and Slaves

Cutting Sugar Cane
Cutting Sugar Cane
Sugar cultivation and production was a year-round process in the Caribbean for two reasons. First, it allowed the intense work of harvest-time to be spread out over a number of months. Second, and perhaps more important to the planters, it kept the slaves constantly occupied with mindless, hard labor, leaving them little time or energy for rebellion. In the English West Indies, where enslaved Africans eventually outnumbered whites by nearly four to one, the specter of an uprising was never far from planters' thoughts.

Le Port au Prince L'Isle de St. Domingue, Vu du Mouillage
Le Port au Prince L'Isle de St. Domingue, Vu du Mouillage
The slave culture that arose in the West Indies was vastly different from that in the English colonial mainland. Enslaved Africans brought to the Indies were deliberately kept separate from the ruling white culture in order to sharpen the distinction between master and slave. Harsh slave codes, such as the Barbados Slave Act of 1661, identified a number of capital crimes which could be committed by slaves (including murder, rape, arson, assault, and theft of anything worth more than a shilling), and designated punishments such as whipping, branding, and nose slitting to lesser crimes. Castration was another punishment used for these lesser crimes, but it was never officially recognized. Other English Caribbean colonies followed the Barbadian lead and adopted similar codes. Observers in Jamaica commented on punishments such as rubbing melted wax into lash wounds, chopping off body parts, impaling, and being burned alive. On Nevis, criminal slaves might be drawn and quartered - a particularly gruesome death. In all cases, overseers had to search slave cabins at least twice a month for stolen goods or weapons, and slaves had to carry a pass if they wished to visit another plantation on Sundays.

Sunday was considered a day of rest for the slaves except during harvest time. In general, however, enslaved Africans would work six days a week for ten to twelve hours a day - from 6 a.m. to 12 noon with an hour break, and then 1 p.m. until dark. During harvest time, the mills would be running twenty-four hours a day with slaves working long, grueling shifts. The plantation owners provided food for their slaves, but it was often in small quantities and lacking in proper nutrition. Barbadian slaves in particular suffered from hunger, where the typical annual expenditure for food and clothing for a slave was less than £2.

Constant work and hunger may have kept some slave solidarity at bay, but other factors worked in the slaves' favor as they were able to retain their African culture much more fully than their brethren in the English mainland colonies. Caribbean plantation owners made virtually no efforts to convert their slaves to Christianity, as this would bring a spiritual level of equality that was unacceptable. In Barbados, the Assembly declared that the slaves' "Savage Brutishness renders them wholly incapable" of conversion to Christianity, while in Jamaica, planters were eventually encouraged to introduce Christianity to their slaves. Most planters ignored this suggestion, believing that introducing European "civility" to their slaves would begin to break down the barrier between master and slave.

As a result of this segregation, enslaved Africans on the sugar plantations were able to retain a great deal of their culture - their religion, their kinship structures, their music, and their language. Although they came from many areas in Africa, they were able to communicate with one another through an African-English patois. Music, dance, and funerary rites could be observed, and the family structures - torn apart by the Middle Passage and slave auctions - were re-forged on the islands. The slaves married (in some cases, male slaves were allowed several wives, if that was their custom in Africa), they lived in family units, and they worshipped deities and ancestors brought in their collective memory from Africa. This allowed slaves a level of solidarity in the sugar islands not found on the mainland, where slaves and whites mingled more freely. This segregation also fostered a greater level of rebellion, despite the owners' best efforts to the contrary.

Between 1640 and 1713, there were seven slave revolts in the English sugar islands in which whites and blacks were killed, along with several slave conspiracies that were forestalled before they came to fruition. Jamaica proved to be the prime breeding ground of revolt, primarily because of the island's Spanish past. Escaped slaves from former Spanish plantations had formed maroon communities in the mountains and were not only a rebellious faction themselves, but also provided a safe haven for newly escaped slaves. Geography and past history each played a role in making Jamaica a hotbed of slave revolt. There were far fewer places to run in Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis.
 
 

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