Caribbean Sugar And Sugar Chapter Summary

Thesis: “This book asks three principal questions: how did the early English planters in the West Indies respond to the novelty of life in the tropics/ to the novelty of large-scale sugar production? And to the novelty of slave labor?”

Summary: Dunn’s book chronicles the settling and early growth of the first 3 generations of British colonists in the Caribbean islands. From a modest attempt to grow North American staples tobacco and cotton, largely with white indentures and their own labor, the islands quickly turned, with Dutch assistance, into great sugar plantations with large numbers of African slave labor and dwindling populations of whites, whether freeman or indentures. The dominance of sugar would determine the very structure of the
Caribbean world and coupled with the climate would create a society that lived for the moment as tomorrow was unlikely to be realized.
This was due to disease, malnutrition, violence, excessive lifestyles, and constant raiding and warfare. Ultimately, a society of slaves would rapidly develop into an extreme slave society almost overnight within the 17th century. Dunn argues that this was economically predictable, as sugar provided enormous profit and slave labor was easily accepted, as exploitation of the poor was a matter of fact in English society and thus the move to slavery was more of an economic facet than a racial one (though English society was largely ethnocentric and easily moved toward race being a natural explanation/acceptable reason for Africans and Indians being enslaved). There were no efforts made prior to the mid 18th century to maintain health of slaves, as they were merely worked to the extreme to extract as much labor before their or their owners’ demise to maximize profits. Therefore, the number of slaves exported to the islands was
prodigious (approximately 1.3 million), but as of the early 18th century, only 30% of that number were still alive. Fatalism created a society both black and white, that lived for the day and thus differed drastically from those on the British mainland.

Sources: Dunn uses a variety of primary sources, though he himself points to the incomplete nature of Caribbean Island records, as a society that had such a high mortality rate was not as concerned with written documentation. However, the use of diaries, land records, baptismal and death records, and personal manuscript accounts are all included. He also relies heavily on Curtin’s demographic data to draw a picture of population for the period. Secondary sources are numerous, but of less importance than contemporary accounts and analysis of these by Dunn.

Critique: Having read such a wide array of topics on slavery and settlement of the Americas the past six weeks, there is much that is similar in Dunn’s chronicle to other’s interpretations for the causes of and expansion of slavery. This is to some extent a product of Dunn being one of the first of the new historiographies on slavery, and his being used and built upon by many of the others I have read. Though the reasons for slavery being largely economic in nature are not new, his account of the incredible differences between the Caribbean Islands and the rest of British North America is quite enlightening. The drastic nature of mortality and its effects on the evolution of the islands, coupled with the intense quest for riches, draws a stark contrast between different locations within British America. The only problem with the work, and this Dunn points out, is that much of what he discusses is built largely on incomplete records so requires a large amount of speculation and surmising on his part. However, even here, Dunn’s assertions are reasonable and provide thought for further research and discussion by historians. Overall, an excellent book and worth the time spent to read.