impact of free villages
NOTES TO ADJUSTMENTS TO EMANCIPATION
From: Caribbean History for CSEC by Kevin Baldeosingh et al
Problems affecting the West Indian sugar industry in the post-emancipation period
1. Increasing cost of production.
There was mismanagement of estates by managers who were in charge because of absentee ownership.
Labourers had to be paid wages now that slavery was abolished.
2. Increasing debts
Planters had borrowed extensively from British merchants and were unable to repay thaeir loans because of low profits.
Many continued to borrow in an attempt to revive their plantations.
However, banks and merchant houses were more skeptical about giving loans to West Indian planters. The Bank of British Guiana and the Planters’ Bank of Jamaica did not want to use estates as security for loans anymore and the Colonial Bank of the West Indies did not make any substantial loans to planters.
3. Shortage of a regular, relatively cheap supply of labour.
After emancipation there was an exodus of ex-slaves from the plantations in the colonies with higher populations.
Those who left the plantations established themselves as peasant cultivators; they planted small-scale market crops and provisions and they kept livestock. Skilled Africans moved to the towns where they were employed as blacksmiths and carpenter, for example.
Africans often supplemented their incomes by working part time on the plantations but the planters found their labour unsatisfactory – the planters wanted cheap, full-time labourers as they had been accustomed to during slavery.
4. Decline in markets for West Indian sugar.
Preferential duties on West Indian sugar were removed under the Sugar Duties Equalization Act, 1846.
Duties were equalized on British West Indian, British East Indian and foreign colonial sugar entering the British market, which meant that West Indian planters now had more competition for markets for their sugar.
The principle of economies of scale refers to the cost
From: Caribbean History for CSEC by Kevin Baldeosingh et al
Problems affecting the West Indian sugar industry in the post-emancipation period
1. Increasing cost of production.
There was mismanagement of estates by managers who were in charge because of absentee ownership.
Labourers had to be paid wages now that slavery was abolished.
2. Increasing debts
Planters had borrowed extensively from British merchants and were unable to repay thaeir loans because of low profits.
Many continued to borrow in an attempt to revive their plantations.
However, banks and merchant houses were more skeptical about giving loans to West Indian planters. The Bank of British Guiana and the Planters’ Bank of Jamaica did not want to use estates as security for loans anymore and the Colonial Bank of the West Indies did not make any substantial loans to planters.
3. Shortage of a regular, relatively cheap supply of labour.
After emancipation there was an exodus of ex-slaves from the plantations in the colonies with higher populations.
Those who left the plantations established themselves as peasant cultivators; they planted small-scale market crops and provisions and they kept livestock. Skilled Africans moved to the towns where they were employed as blacksmiths and carpenter, for example.
Africans often supplemented their incomes by working part time on the plantations but the planters found their labour unsatisfactory – the planters wanted cheap, full-time labourers as they had been accustomed to during slavery.
4. Decline in markets for West Indian sugar.
Preferential duties on West Indian sugar were removed under the Sugar Duties Equalization Act, 1846.
Duties were equalized on British West Indian, British East Indian and foreign colonial sugar entering the British market, which meant that West Indian planters now had more competition for markets for their sugar.
The principle of economies of scale refers to the cost