Merchants and planters

• Sugar


  The New Age
• Wealth of the New World was in gold, silver and other treasures


  Sixteenth century
• Wealth was more generally in crops, particularly tobacco, cotton and dyes


  Seventeenth century
• As the seventeenth century drew to a close, one crop began to outstrip all others: sugar cane
• By producing sugar, the West Indian colonies quickly changed from a variety of crops with low market values to a single crop that commanded the highest market values in Europe
• Before the seventeenth century was over, 'sugar was king' and it remained so for almost the next 200 years
• Dutch planters in Brazil


  First colonists in the Americas to grow sugar extensively
• In 1644 they taught the English in Barbados how to grow and process sugar
• By 1650 Barbados was leading the way so successfully that it was known as 'the brightest jewel in the crown of King Charles II
• The English and French colonies quickly followed the Barbadians' example, changing from peasant farming societies into large slave-based plantations
• The Indians who had helped the settlers to plant tropical crops had not known much about sugar cane and only used it to make a refreshing drink
• The Spanish had not produced sugar in large quantities
• Soon the English and French were inventing new and better ways of processing sugar cane
• African slaves made up the cheapest labour force for sugar production
• Sugar planting and production had to be on a much larger scale than for tobacco growing, so the years of the small planter came to an end
• Great plantations developed by buying and combining small plots
• Larger fields, the demand for more investment and a larger labour force all meant that the pattern of life in the West Indies changed as the age of the powerful merchants and planters began
• Plantation System


  The production method that dominated the people, politics and entire societies of the Caribbean
• Caribbean sugar planter


  Not merely a farmer, also ran factories, traded in goods and organised people
• What the Caribbean sugar planter needed

  • One or two mills to extract juice from the sugar cane
  • Boiling house to purify and evaporate the cane juice into sugar crystals
  • Curing house for drying the sugar and draining out the molasses
  • Distillery for making rum
• A business this size needed thousands of pounds even before any sugar production could begin
• Proprietors


  The men who put their money into, or financed, these new sugar ventures
• Many proprietors were absentee owners who sent others out to cultivate and run their plantations for them
• Planters called attorneys had the duty to produce enough sugar to make a handsome profit for their proprietors
• Every part of the plantation system had to be run as cheaply as possible to return the maximum profits
• While a few men in the Caribbean and Europe made a great deal of money, there were millions of others who suffered terribly to produce that wealth
• The planters in the Caribbean cultivated and manufactured sugar, while the merchants in Europe bought and sold it
• A trading system developed across the Atlantic Ocean as the planters and the merchants shared in the trade
• All the groups who made money from sugar were known in Europe as 'the West India Interest', and they used their wealth and power to make sure that sugar remained king for as long as possible
• Sugar filled a large need in Europe for sweetening food and drink
• In earlier times people had used honey but it could not be produced in large enough quantities and was therefore very expensive
• Many people could afford to buy sugar, and it was used in many ways, particularly in tea, coffee and cocoa, which had recently been brought into Europe from newly discovered lands
• As the sale of sugar rose, the product became one of the greatest money-making crops ever grown
• By 1200, the West Indian planters were the wealthiest merchants in the Americas
• Sir James Drax of Barbados built up riches so vast that it was only a question how soon he could get back to England and buy an estate costing £5000 a year
• Because the islands in the Caribbean belonged to the Crown of the country that claimed them, proprietors had to get royal permission to send people out to build colonies
• Letters patent


  An open certificate or declaration from the king granting particular proprietors the title and protection to control, work and harvest the land declared in the patent
• In 1627 the Earl of Carlisle received a patent from Charles I to control Barbados and certain other islands in the Lesser Antilles
• Carlisle only had to pay the Crown £100 a year for this charter, and in turn he was able to grant out land or give it to merchants
• There were often quarrels when two different patents gave rights to the same islands or pieces of land, even between countries