Historic_Events

History notes on plantation Plantation System In the 17th century Europeans began to establish settlements in the Americas. The division of the land into smaller units under private ownership became known as the plantation system. Starting in Virginia the system spread to the New England colonies. Crops grown on these plantations such as tobacco, rice, sugar cane and cotton were labour intensive. Slaves were in the fields from sunrise to sunset and at harvest time they did an eighteen hour day. Women worked the same hours as the men and pregnant women were expected to continue until their child was born. European immigrants had gone to America to own their own land and were reluctant to work for others. Convicts were sent over from Britain but there had not been enough to satisfy the tremendous demand for labour. Planters therefore began to purchase slaves. At first these came from the West Indies but by the late 18th century they came directly from Africa and busy slave-markets were established in Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans. The death-rate amongst slaves was high. To replace their losses, plantation owners encouraged the slaves to have children. Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women slaves would be expected to have four or five children. To encourage child-bearing some population owners promised women slaves their freedom after they had produced fifteen children. Cotton Plantations A large number of early settlers in America grew cotton. To grow cotton and to pick, gin (remove seeds from the white fluff) and bale it took a great deal of work. Therefore large numbers of slaves were purchased to do this work. The industry was given a boost invention of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin in 1793. With the aid of a horse to turn the gin, a man could clean fifty times as much cotton as before. This increased the demand for slaves. For example, in 1803 alone, over 20,000 slaves were being brought into Georgia and South Carolina to work in the cotton fields. Much of this cotton was exported to Britain where the invention of the Spinning Jenny, the Water Frame and the Power Loom had rapidly increased the demand for raw cotton. By 1850 America was producing 3,000,000 bales of cotton and the industry had become a vital element of the South's economy. Sugar Plantations At first settlers in America imported cane sugar from the West Indies. However, after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, plantation owners began growing sugar cane. This crop was labour intensive and large numbers of slaves were purchased to do this work. The crushed cane was used for fuel, molasses and as a base for rum. The industry grew rapidly and by 1830 New Orleans had the largest sugar refinery in the world with an annual capacity of 6,000 tons. Tobacco Plantations American settlers soon found tobacco to be a profitable export crop. It was popular in Europe where tobacco-smoking and snuff-taking had become fashionable. In Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, vast areas were given over to tobacco. Plantation owners imported large numbers of slaves to cultivate it, dry its leaves and pack it to be transported to market. When prices fell in the middle of the 17th century, some planters turned to producing rice and sugar cane. Slavery in the Caribbean Demand for slaves to cultivate sugarcane and other crops caused what came to be known as the triangle trade. Ships leaving Europe first stopped in Africa where they traded weapons, ammunition, metal, liquor, and cloth for captives taken in wars or raids. The ships then travelled to America, where slaves were exchanged for sugar, rum, salt, and other island products. The ships returned home loaded with products popular with the European people, and ready to begin their journey again. An estimated 8 to 15 million Africans reached the Americas from the 16th through the 19th century. Only the youngest and healthiest people were taken for what was called the middle passage of the triangle trade, partly because they would be worth more in America, and partly because they were the most likely to reach their destination alive. Conditions aboard the ship were dreadful. Slaves were jammed into the hull; chained to one another in order to stop revolts; as many as one in five passengers did not survive the journey. When one of the enslaved people was stricken with dysentery or smallpox, they were cast overboard. Those who survived the middle passage faced more abuses on the plantations. Many of the plantation owners had returned to Europe, leaving their holdings in America to be managed by overseers who were often unstable or unsavoury. Families were split up, and the Africans were not allowed to learn to read or write. African men, women, and children were forced to work with little to eat or drink. The African slave population quickly began to outnumber the Europeans and Native Americans. The proportion of slaves ranged from about one third in Cuba, to more than ninety percent in many of the islands. Slave rebellions were common. As slave rebellions became more frequent, European investors lost money. The costs of maintaining slavery grew higher when the European governments sent in armed forces to quell the revolts. Many Europeans began to pressure their governments to abolish slavery. The first organized opposition to slavery came in 1724 from the Quakers, a Christian sect also known as the Society of Friends. Great Britain outlawed slavery in all of their territories in 1833, but the practice continued for almost fifty years on some of the islands of the Caribbean. Once slavery was abolished, the plantation owners hired hundreds of thousands of people from India and other places in Asia. In Trinidad, about forty percent of the population is Asian.