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This study estimates agency’s impact on sugar plantation productivity using a unique early nineteenth-century panel data set from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Results of fixed effects models, combined with a qualitative and quantitative analysis of potential endogeneity of the agency variable, provide no evidence that estates managed by agents were less productive than those managed by their owners. We discuss the results in the context of the historical and recent, revisionary, interpretations of agency, and the emergence of managerial hierarchies in the Atlantic economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-examines the declining influence of Jamaican sugar planters within the British Empire during the period between the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 and Parliament’s decision to abolish the slave trade in 1807. Much of the existing scholarship emphasises the consequences of the American Revolutionary War and rise of abolitionism during the 1780s as pivotal to the fall of the planters. This article argues that those challenges did not determine the fate of the Jamaican planters. Rather, it was the radicalisation of the French and Haitian Revolutions, and the extended period of war that began in 1793, that led to their eventual defeat over the question of the slave trade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Across the late-nineteenth-century Caribbean, sugar plantations were replaced by centralized industrial factories filled with sophisticated machines. Contemporary observers and later historians have credited those factories and machines with producing sugar of unprecedented purity and consistency. In doing so, they have written sugar's modern history as one of artisan skill replaced by automation. They have also accepted that sugar as a commodity inevitably approaches a sameness that only modern science can measure. This essay argues that the notion that sugar is a globally uniform chemical commodity was equally the product of these factories, showing them to be sites of metrological struggles for control of the labor process. For centuries sugar production had depended on workers' multisensory skills; by claiming that pure sugar was a chemical, industrialists tried to delegitimize these artisans' knowledge and obscure its continuing importance. Far from being automatic, however, the production of chemically pure sugar now depended on the equally hidden work of chemists, whose form of knowledge cane farmers distrusted and turned to the state to regulate. By examining the construction of sugar's apparently universal metrology, this essay suggests how historians can expose the invisible skilled labor that turns nature's diversity into interchangeable goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses history topics of articles within this issue including the impact of digitalization of history sources in archives on the field of history, technology and slavery on Atlantic region sugar plantations, and a microhistory focusing on Tsuneno, a Japanese maidservant.

The article revisits one of the most significant questions in the historiography of British West Indian slavery and abolition. It examines the argument that the relatively weak state of the British West Indian economy from the 1780s onward was the main reason why Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807. In confronting this question of decline, the article analyzes the largest and most important slave plantation economy – Jamaica – during the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using newly generated indicators such as total factor productivity and national income, the paper constructs a case for the dynamism and efficiency of the plantation system in Jamaica right up to abolition in 1807. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Field studies were carried out in 1989-1995 and 2006-2012 on plantations of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L. subsp. vulgaris). During this period, 542 phytosociological relevés were made using the Braun-Blanquet method. In total, 46 weed species were found. In 1989-1995, the occurrence of 36 segetal species was reported. The highest cover indices were determined for Chenopodium album and Amaranthus retroflexus. Galium aparine, Echinochloa crus-galli, and Elymus repens were the dominant species, as well. Analysis of the frequency of occurrence revealed one constant species (Chenopodium album), two frequent species (Amaranthus retro- flexus and Galium aparine), and two medium-frequent species (Echinochloa crusgalli and Matricaria maritima ssp. inodora). In 2006-2012, the occurrence of 40 weed species on the sugar beet plantations was recorded. The plantations were clearly dominated by Chenopodium album, accompanied by Polygonum persicaria and Polygonum lapathifolium ssp. lapathifolium. Other dominant species comprised Setaria viridis, Galinsoga parviflora, Brassica napus ssp. napus, and Fallopia convolvulus. The Chenopodium album was a constant component of the sugar beet plantations. In turn, no frequent species were observed and six medium-frequent species were found (Setaria viridis, Galinsoga parviflora, Brassica napus ssp. napus, Echinochloa crus-galli, Amaranthus retroflexus, and Capsella bursa-pastoris). Noteworthy, the presence of previously unreported species, e.g., Abutilon theophrasti, Hyoscyamus niger, or Artemisia vulgaris, was revealed. These species are rare components in sugar beet crops. A reverse phenomenon, i.e., the disappearance of some species such as Euphorbia helioscopia, Malva neglecta, Rumex acetosella, Sinapis arvensis, or Sisymbrium officinale, was also observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I build upon Warren Dean's hypothesis that if there were more effective means to combat leaf-cutting ants in the colonial era the agrarian history of Brazil would have been entirely different. Using the wealth of scientific research that emerged in the last thirty years, along with experiential accounts from colonial times, I try to portray leaf-cutting ants as non-human actors that actively participated in the drama of the Portuguese colonization of America. Biogeographically restricted to the Neotropics, leaf-cutting ants and their horticultural system – underground fungal gardens grown with compost made of freshly cut pieces of leaves, flowers and fruits – posed a major challenge for Portuguese farmers, who were completely unfamiliar with those social insects. The analysis of how the ant activity has shaped the European croplands – including the native crops grown by Europeans, such as cassava – casts a new light on certain fundamental developments of the rural economy, such as the resounding success of sugarcane plantations and the widespread adoption of the slash-and-burn system. On a higher level of abstraction, it points to the importance of challenging the subtle but pervasive notion that New World lands were lifeless and isotropic surfaces for European colonial settlement. As far as the actual tilling of the earth is concerned, Brazilian native lands were not the blank background in colonial cadastral maps, but vibrant life-sites in whose bosom local and adventitious species and cultures negotiated their coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the nature and meaning of sugarcane arson in Cuba during the first four decades of the twentieth century. In the scholarly literature as well as popular memory, the illegal burning of sugarcane has been seen as an important means by which marginalized groups, such as slaves, rebels, bandits, and striking workers, challenged the established order during times of political and social upheaval. Sugarcane arson, however, was not just a tactical measure utilized during extraordinary moments, but was intrinsic to the island s sugar economy. Despite varied efforts by government officials and plantation managers to prevent cane fires, a number of groups--including colonos (cane farmers) as well as cane cutters--regularly ignited sugar fields for their own purposes. Using sugarcane arson as an analytical lens thus provides a more nuanced picture of agrarian relations in prerevolutionary Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major obstacle to understanding Montserrat's sugar industry and the often-contentious social dynamics that accompanied it has been the absence of a comprehensive study of the small Caribbean island's plantation-era cultural landscape. We employ a multi-scalar approach, combining archival research and archaeological survey data, to trace the island's shifting socio-cultural composition and fluctuating sugar industry over the course of two centuries (ca. 1650-1850). Adopting an island-wide perspective on the interpretation of Montserrat's plantation-era remains, we expand the breadth and depth of understandings about the island's sugar society through comparative, multi-sited analyses. Our findings underscore the importance of extending Caribbean plantation studies beyond individual estates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines wealth inequalities and social hierarchies that appeared among slave communities on sugar plantations in the British Caribbean. These inequalities in status and in material conditions among the enslaved were the product of the privileges that planters granted elite slaves, the collective survival strategies of smaller family groups and the energy demands of different working roles. Elite creole families emerged on sugar plantations and these slaves lived more privileged lives than the rest. African-born slaves and women were particularly disadvantaged. Inequalities in status and material conditions could create oppressive and discordant community dynamics within the slave community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents methodologies employed in, and initial interpretations of, an archaeological study of a pre-sugar and sugar era Barbadian plantation. A close examination of a 1646 map reveals a pre-sugar landscape in transition as the island was in the midst of the transformative sugar revolution. The map directed archaeological investigations that recovered materials associated with pre-sugar labourers, including European indentured servants and enslaved Africans. This data is then compared to material collected from undisturbed villages for the enslaved. We discuss the significance of these findings as well as their implications for understanding the onset of early capitalistic modes of production and how they affected the lives of labourers on the Barbadian landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological research on two sugar plantations of the Chapada dos Guimarães region of West Brazil, the engenhos (sugar mills) of Rio da Casca and Agua Fria, has provided an opportunity to study the organization and use of these spaces by planters, free laborers, and slaves. Planters organized the plantations according to a rigidly hierarchical model in which the planter's house was the central location. They distributed European-produced goods among free laborers and slaves, aiming to reaffirm this hierarchical order. Though the slaves, in turn, had to live within this hierarchical system, they were also able to take advantage of opportunities to subvert this space, using it according to their own practices and traditions. In this sense, they invested the locally produced low-fired earth- enware with sign-values and symbols related to their African backgrounds. Thus, two sets of discourses were fitted into the same landscape, composing a dialectic that characterized the multicultural space of the plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Barbadian sugar industry was interpreted by the English scientific community in the latter seventeenth century. In particular it focuses upon the spread of ingenios (sugar mills) to Barbados from Brazil, and how this process was understood and chronicled by England’s early scientific community of experimental philosophers. It then contrasts these narratives against archived plantation documents from this period, demonstrating how these writers, despite explicit claims to the contrary, were relatively unconcerned with creating an objective account of sugar-making. Rather, they highlighted specific elements of the industry in order to make the ‘invention’ of sugar appear congruent with their new experimental methodology. These scientific narratives thus ignore a host of factors within the early Barbadian industry, particularly the critical sugar-making knowledge embodied within the plantation’s servile workforce. Rather than illuminating this facet of the industry, experimental philosophers efface these workers and portray ingenios as the laudable product of a few ingenious, experimenting white planters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Once the British transatlantic slave trade came under abolitionists' scrutiny in 1788, West Indian slaveholders had to consider alternative methods of obtaining well-needed laborers. This article examines changes in enslaved women's working lives as planters sought to increase birth rates to replenish declining laboring populations. By focusing more on variances in work assignment and degrees of punishment rather than their absence, this article establishes that enslaved women in Jamaica experienced a considerable shift in their work responsibilities and their subjection to discipline as slaveholders sought to capitalize on their abilities to reproduce. Enslaved women's reproductive capabilities were pivotal for slavery and the plantation economy's survival once legal supplies from Africa were discontinued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies the experience of slavery and its abolition on the sugar plantation La Esperanza, on the northern coastal plain of Puerto Rico. It offers a snapshot of La Esperanza's slave crew and presents insights into the affective relationships slaves established among themselves. Based on census material and court records, the article focuses on slave agency and on the opportunities rendered by the political and administrative context created in the colony after the triumph of liberalism in Spain. As the abolition of slavery approached, the local court restricted planters' traditional rights to administer punishment to their bondsmen, who they now began to see as potential free citizens. Slaves responded accordingly and played a decisive part in the process of change, thus showing understanding of the law and its possibilities. The events described here will help depict how ‘freedom’ took shape and how the administration of justice was becoming an exclusive prerogative of the state and its already dense network of intervention. The slaves were quick to observe and partake in the rigorous truth-establishing processes of meticulous investigation and witness interrogation characteristic of the practice of ordinary justice as it began to break into the plantation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a detailed case study of the financial records of a Barbadian sugar plantation, Turner's Hall, from 1770 to 1793. It explores the challenges faced by the managers and the strategies they adopted. The most significant internal challenge was the maintenance of a sufficient labour force and the two greatest external challenges were the American Revolution and the hurricane of 1780. Sugar production was an uncertain and volatile business, especially in this era, but the potential for high returns, even during the war, offset these risks and planters could adapt quickly to the changing business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is presented about several papers discussed at a conference entitled "Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development," held April 4-9, 2011 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Topics discussed include slavery and economic development in New England, the slave trade and commercial shipping in the U.S., and economic ties between American colleges and Caribbean sugar plantations.

In this article the author examines aspects of the resistance of the Maroons, slaves imported from Africa, against the Danish masters in the island of St. Croix. It is noted that more than 50,000 African slaves were brought to the Danish West Indies to work on sugar plantations during the three centuries of the slave trade. A number of topics are addressed including covert or concealed forms of resistance such as damaging machinery or injuring farm animals, or the more overt act of running away and becoming fugitives.

Este artigo descreve a perspectiva da elite Pernambucana sobre trabalho e meio ambiente na zona açucareira. Baseada numa análise de textos escritos por Joaquim Nabuco, Júlio Bello, José Lins do Rego, e Gilberto Freyre, o artigo sustenta que a elite percebia os engenhos como paisagens de trabalho, ou espaços de produção que incorporavam trabalhadores, solo, e floresta juntos numa totalidade. Formada no contexto de escravidão, esta perspectiva persistiu depois da transição para trabalho livre. O artigo examina a presença durável desta perspectiva, utilizando o conceito de habitus descrito por Pierre Bourdieu. Acostumado aos privilégios de poder, a elite tinha o hábito de mandar, e tudo nos engenhos era suscetível ao seu mando. Os textos dos autores revelam todos os aspectos dessa maneira de ver e intender o mundo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a critique of author Daphne Rooke's novel "Ratoons." The author discusses Rook's fictionalized accounts of sugar farming in South Africa as expressed in metaphor and materiality. The author also provides historical information concerning the sugar trade in Africa and sugar production through the plantation system.

This article discusses the excavations of the University of Florida Historical Archaeology Field School at Kinglsey Plantation on Fort George Island in the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve National Park in Jacksonville, Florida. The excavation of African American antiquities relating to firearm use and spirituality at this site is described. The discovery of tabby walls, which are constructed with limestone, sand and shells, from a sugar plantation at the site is also noted.