Jamaica sugar cane plant crop crops produced plantations Caribbean island mills mill farm farming sweet African slaves British
The sugar cane plant was the main crop produced on the numerous plantations throughout the Caribbean through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, as almost every island was covered with sugar plantations and mills for refining the cane for its sweet properties. The main source of labor was African slaves. These plantations produced eighty to ninety percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe. In the 19th century sugar dominated Martinique, Grenada, Saint Croix, Jamaica, Barbados, Leeward Islands, Saint Domingue, Cuba, Guyana and many other islands that were run by French or British owners. On the British islands, sugar was the only crop grown, and on the French islands, sugar was their most important crop. The sugar was best grown on land that was near the coast where the soil was naturally yellow and fertile. In the mid 17th century sugar cane was brought into British West Indies by the Dutch from Brazil. Upon landing in Barbados and other islands, they quickly urged local farmers to change their main crops from cotton and tobacco to sugar cane. With depressed prices of cotton and tobacco due mainly to stiff competition from the North American colonies, the farmers switched, leading to a boom in the Caribbean economies. Sugar was quickly snapped up by the British who used the sugar for cakes, and sweetener in teas.
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