The Working Plantation

• Plantation


  A farm and a factory that grew and processed its own products
• Plantation


  • Carefully organised system of labour
  • Buildings and workforce organised on the cheapest possible lines to produce the greatest profits
• Producing sugar and coffee on a plantation


  1. Planting sugar cane shoots or coffee seeds

  2. Processing the product

  3. Shipping the finished product
• Every process involved the work of a slave
• Everything in the lives of the slaves was linked to the plantation
• Slaves' houses, food, clothes and tools were distributed by the planters
• Slaves were punished, rewarded or sold at the will of the planter
• Governments made laws to regulate the planters' power over the slaves and how they should be treated
• Since the planters sat in the Houses of Assembly and made the laws, everything was usually in their favour
• The treatment of slaves often depended on how good or bad their individual masters were
• Plantation areas of activity


  • Fields for growing
  • Mill for processing
• Growing sugar


  1. Land cleared by 'great gangs'

  2. Staked out fields

  3. Dug trenches for 'holing'

  4. Planted cuttings of old cane stalks

  5. Cane fields ready for harvesting 16 months later
• Driver


  One of the slaves, important figure who had to be respected, duty was to preserve order among the slaves, supervise their work, discover and expose any plots or secret plans
• Overseers


  • White, also known as 'bookkeepers', above the drivers
• Planting

  Usually done between October and December, when there was enough rain to make cuttings sprout easily
• Harvesting


  Between January and May, planters arranged fields to be planted at different times so harvest could be spread over a number of months
• 'Plant canes'


  Grew from cuttings
• 'Ratoon'


  After canes harvested, field left to grow back again from the shoots or ratoons which sprang from the previous crop
• Some planters let 'ratoon' happen for three or four seasons, used less labour, but if continued for too long without replanting, less and less sugar was produced
• Cane cultivation


  1. Weeding

  2. Manuring with cattle dung and cane trash

  3. Done by 'second gang' of old slaves and children
• Field work lasted from sun-up to sun-down
• Slave gangs were roused by bell or conch-shell at dawn
• Slave tools


  • Axe
  • Hoe
  • Cane bill (large, curved knives used to cut ripe canes)
• Cane harvesting


  1. Removing outer leaves

  2. Putting stalks in bundles

  3. Carting to mill for grinding
• Sugar mill and factory operation during harvesting

  1. Constant flow of cane juice from mill rollers to boilers

  2. Heating of syrup in boilers
• Types of sugar mills

  • Cattle-mill
  • Windmill
  • Watermill
• Cattle-mill


  • 3 or 4 upright rollers
  • Beams from central shaft to edge of circle
  • Mules or oxen hitched to beams and driven round
  • Slaves forced canes between rollers
• Windmill


  • Huge wood and canvas sails on stone tower
  • Shaft running down tower drives rollers
• Watermill


  • Canals of cut stone from mountain stream dam
  • Canal conducts flow to turn huge wheel
  • Wheel connected to rollers by cogs
  • Canals often built high across valleys on stone arches
• Sugar production process


  1. Juice clarification by heating with lime

  2. Boiling in iron or copper boilers over stone furnace

  3. Final boiling in 'teche' boiler
• Skilled slaves in boiling houses

  • Knew when to transfer cane juice between boilers
  • Knew when to stop boiling syrup to form sugar crystals
• Esteban Montejo: 'I know that part of sugar-making better than most people who only know the cane as it is outside in the fields. And to tell the truth I preferred the inside part, it was easier... I must have been ten years old then, and that is why they had not sent me to work in the fields. But then ten was like thirty now, because boys worked like oxen.'
• The indoor parts of the plantation were primitive, not like today with lights and fast machinery
• To make refined sugar, the raw sugar was poured into funnels ('moulds') to drain the moisture, leaving the hard dry sugar behind
• The refined sugar taken out of the pointed clay moulds was called a 'sugar loaf'
• Some islands have tall, steep mountains named 'Sugar Loaf' because they look like the early plantation sugar loaves
• In addition to these employees, there was an army of laborers who worked on the estates, including slaves, indentured servants, and free blacks.
• Plantations also provided employment to thousands of people, including overseers, drivers, carpenters, blacksmiths, coopers, masons, gardeners, cooks, butchers, bakers, and other skilled workers.
• The plantations were the backbone of the British economy, providing raw materials such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, rice, ginger, cocoa, coffee, spices, and timber.
• Overseers were responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the estate, supervising workers, ensuring productivity, and maintaining discipline among enslaved Africans.