Jamaican West Indian History

Just at the time when the British West Indies were beginning to export sugar and were becoming commercially important, that is, about 1650, the British enacted a number of laws designed to link the colonies more securely to Britain and keep any profits out of foreign hands. This was a very important development in Jamaican West Indian history. Based on the Spanish idea of monopoly, these laws obliged the British West Indies to trade only with Britain or with other British colonies. All their goods had to be carried in British or colonial-built ships. In return, the colonists were given a protected market in Britain, their sugar being charged much less duty than sugar from elsewhere. However, this applied only to unrefined sugar. Britain imposed such high duties on refined sugar that it could not be made profitably in the colonies. More shrewd tactics like this could be evidenced in the history of arrival of the British in Jamaica.

This is still the case. The small quantity of refined sugar made in the Commonwealth Caribbean territories today is sold only in the territories themselves. It cannot easily compete with sugar produced by refineries built near to the market, for these have the advantage of being able to import raw sugar from countries in different parts of the world and so keep operating all through the year. Also they are better placed to make and package the various types and grades of sugar their customers want. As a result the West Indies have not been able to develop what could be a valuable refining industry. This lead to a need to seek out new markets which is why the history of coconut in the west indies has remained strong ever since that time.

The laws Britain imposed on shipping were resented by other nations. The Dutch, who were the chief traders in the Caribbean in the early seventeenth century, were the first to suffer, and soon they were at war with Britain. The Dutch thereafter lost much of their influence in the Caribbean, though their islands of St Eustatius and Curacao continued to act as important free ports where ships of all nationalities would call to buy wine, slaves, European manufactures and American goods but the history of plantation owners in Jamaica west indies for the Dutch traders were at a miserable end.

From then on, Britain’s chief rival was France, often allied with Spain. The French colonists in Martinique, Guadeloupe and St Domingue not only produced more sugar than the British colonies but sold it much more cheaply and so built up a considerable trade with North America, which was legally a British market. As the West Indies became increasingly valuable, so the conflicts over the islands became increasingly fierce. Raids were carried out to devastate plantations, destroy sugar works and capture slaves in order to reduce the enemy’s sugar output for years to come. Those islands of the Lesser Antilles that were weak enough to be easily captured and rich enough to be worth taking changed ownership several times with the result that their development was retarded. Fortunately it was the West African slaves in Jamaican history that were unrelenting in their revolts and uprisings.

The end of West Indian prosperity
Though each of the sugar colonies reached the peak of its prosperity at a different time, the last half of the eighteenth century saw them all at about their richest. They were rightly described as being ‘the jewels in the English crown’, and vital to Jamaica trading history as they brought more money to Britain than did any other part of the world. A century later, however, all had changed. The output of sugar had dwindled in most colonies and had ceased altogether in some.

The underlying cause of this decline was the high cost of British West Indian sugar. This resulted in part from the high duties which Parliament was persuaded to charge on sugar entering Britain from sources outside the British West Indies. Safeguarded in this way from competition, the planters had no incentive to improve their estates. They kept large numbers of slaves who, being unpaid, knew no incentive for work except force. This was a major precursor to Jamaica’s history on runaway slaves. This was inefficient because the workers were naturally reluctant to do more than they had to and because about one man in twelve was needed as a supervisor and did no productive work. None of the slaves had a skilled job.

The few who worked in the factories were semiskilled; the vast majority in the fields was entirely unskilled and used only the simplest tools. Unskilled labor and primitive equipment resulted— as it always does—in low productivity. Labor- saving methods were not unknown, but they were disregarded by the planters because their main concern was to find ways of keeping the slaves occupied for as much of the year as possible. The abolitionists and missionaries saw this as a perfect opportunity to begin the long history of education in Jamaica. Nothing could have been less suited to sugar—a seasonal crop which pays the best returns to those who plant and reap it quickly.

Yields were therefore low and prices high. Another factor in the decline was the over- dependence on sugar and the lack of alternative exports or even of foodstuffs for local consumption. Any fall in the price of sugar or rise in the price of imports was a severe blow to all the estates and was ruinous to the weaker ones. This was effectively the end of history of Jamaica sugar industry. As for the planters themselves, they often preferred to spend their income on lavish living rather than on improving their estates. When times were bad they maintained their way of life by borrowing from British merchants and then paying high rates of interest. Money therefore flowed out of the West Indies, not into them. Many of the estate-owners lived in England and seldom if ever visited the West Indies. They left their properties in the hands of managers who had little interest in efficient Jamaican farming and every opportunity to be dishonest, signaling the decline in history of Jamaican great houses.

In spite of these weaknesses the British West Indies enjoyed a final short period of prosperity at the end of the eighteenth century when the slaves in St Domingue successfully revolted and set up the independent state of Haiti. Sugar exports suddenly ceased from what had been the world’s largest producer, and so the American and European markets were open to British West Indian sugar for a few more years. However, the latter market was lost when in 1804 war broke out between France and Britain, and Napoleon closed the European ports to British shipping. In order to maintain the supply of sugar on the continent, Napoleon encouraged the cultivation of sugar beet. Sugar production was no longer confined to the tropics and cane sugar never regained its former importance.