The Planter Class and British West Indian

Sugar Production, before and after

Emancipation
BY W. A. G R E E N

NTIL recent times, the old planter class in the British West Indies suffered

U censorious and contemptuous treatment from historians. The traditional

view of the planters in the age of slavery was derived from the polemical
works of nineteenth-century abolitionists w ho denounced them as coarse, stub-
born conservatives guilty of brutalizing their slaves by an unconscionable attach-
ment to crude and anachronistic techniques. Recent research into the affairs
of West India sugar estates, beginning with Richard Pares's A West India Fortune
(1950}, has provided a different portrait of the planters. Pares's study of the
Pinney plantations in Nevis and the recently published history of Worthy Park
Estate, Jamaica, by Craton and Walvin^ suggest that planters were not uniformly
callous toward their servants or reactionary' and unimaginative in their agricul-
tural techniques. Instead, these studies offer ample evidence of the resourceful-
ness of many West Indian proprietors, their meticulous care of plantation
property, and their capacity for intelligent innovation.
Alodes of production in the sugar industry were constrained as well as sustained
by slavery, but innovation was not blindly abjured. Controversies raged between
groups of planters over the most effective techniques of cultivation. Men learned
their vocations from one another and from hard experience in cultivating the
land. The character of soils varied from one district to another and even w-ithin
the confines of single estates. Different cane pieces demanded different treatment,
and the sugars produced from varying soils required distinctive handling in the
boiling process to assure that they travelled w-ell on the sea voyage to England.
Universal remedies for the problems of the estates glibly pronounced by con-
temporary Britons offered little aid to practical planters, for as one Jamaica
governor acknowledged, "an excellent planter in one district may be entirely
unqualified to manage an estate in another."- In many cases, technological
innovations recommended by European critics were impeded or precluded by
climatic and topographical conditions which those critics failed to appreciate or
chose to ignore. This article re-examines the system of production in the British
Caribbean in an attempt to afford additional new perspectives to the old criti-
cism and to provide further testimony to the energy and determination with
which many \Vest Indian planters responded to the challenge of emancipation.*
^ M.CratonandJ.Walvm,.4jamotconP/onJafton: TheHistoryof WorthyParh,i6yo-igjo•'Toi:omo,iCj-o
2 Elgin to Stanley, 20 April 1843, P.R.O. Colonial Papers. C.O 137/273.
3 For a valuable and comprehensive analysis of the response of the Jamaica planters to the challenge
 PLANTER CLASS 449

I
The seasonal nature of sugar production, the system of slavery, and the stiff soils
and rugged terrain of the British West Indies combined to render the use of
animal-powered farm machinery generally of less value to sugar planters than to
European husbandmen. In Europe, farm implements were employed to reduce
labour costs and increase yields. On slave-labour sugar estates these implements
had little effect upon labour costs and were considered by many experienced
planters to be positively injurious to the soil.^ The size of an estate's labour force
was not regulated by the requirements of cultivation. Rather, it was determined
by the extraordinary' demand for labour during the harvest season when sugar
was cut, milled, boiled, cured, packaged, and transported to port. These func-
tions were performed simultaneously, and their conduct strained the manpower
resources ofevery plantation. Because it was necessary to retain a full complement
of slaves during the peak crop season, planters were obliged to tolerate a degree
of labour redundancy throughout the remainder of the year when most of the
planting, weeding, and manuring was performed. Rather than invest in agricul-
tural machinery and draught animals to magnify the extent of labour redun-
dancy during slow seasons, proprietors were inclined to rely upon the manual
labour of slaves whose maintenance costs they were obliged to bear whether or
not they were fuJly employed.
Conditions changed in the British West Indies after the abolition of the slave
trade. The slave population declined by 5 per cent between 1817 and 1829,*
and in 1830 only 44 per cent of the remaining slaves were considered effective
cane workers.^ In some areas the shortage of labour had become such a problem
that proprietors who owned two plantations abandoned one of them in order to
concentrate all of their slaves upon the proper cultivation of the other.* Because
declining slave numbers rendered each bondsman more valuable to his owner,
intelligent planters exhibited increasing interest in implements of husbandry
which might conserve the strength and enhance the fecundity of their slaves.
The plough was the most obvious implement capable of alleviating the field
work of slaves. It had been tried in Jamaica before 1774.^ It was subsequently
used in each of the other colonies, and its employment became a central topic of
controversy throughout the islands.* Many absentees sent ploughs out to their
estates, but on a majority of plantations they were not adopted. This apparent
neglect of a basic labour-saving implement constituted a formidable point of
criticism which the colonists' enemies assiduously exploited in their condem-
nation of the West Indian system of agriculture.
Where the plough was not adopted, the reasons were usually well considered
or justifiable, not frivolous. Some planters thought that its use over-exposed the
soil, causing desiccation and loss of fertility.' This was a problem in the tropics.

of free-labour sugar production, see D. HaXl, Free Jamaica, 1838-1865: An Economic History (New Haven,
1959)-
lR.Pares,/4 WestIndiaForturu{iq^o),^.ii\. * The Anti^laoety Seporter,v {Sept. 1633),
* Report of the Select Committee on the StaU of the West India Colonies (Farl. Papers, 1831-3, xx).
* M. G. Lewis, Jounia/ of a West India Proprietor (1834), p. 96.
* N. Deerr, The History of Sugar (1930), n, 353-4. • Pares, op. cit. p. 112.
1 Select Committee on West India Colonies (P.P. 1843, xm), QQ. 3139-30.
450 W. A. GREEN
Where natural fertility was exhausted by consistent planting and supplementar\'
fertilizer was in short supply, the planters had legitimate cause for concern.
Many Barbados planters had adopted the plough before 1820, but a period of
dry seasons and low crops during the succeeding decade persuaded them to revert
to the hoe.^ In Barbados and the Leeward Islands, where garden-type cultivation
was most commonly performed, there was no important labour shortage com-
pelling planters to use labour-saving machinery. Indeed, in contrast to the situa-
tion prevailing in other colonies, the slave population of Barbados increased by
17 per cent between 1812 and 1829.^
On many estates, cane fields were not suited to ploughing. The land was
either too hilly, too stony, or too heavy. The Nevis legislature estimated in 1789
that only 400 of the island's 8,000 cane acres were fit for ploughing.' In the Wind-
ward Islands and Dominica most of the cultivation and many of the best canes
were located on steep hillsides which were unsuited to the plough. Tree stumps
prevented the use of ploughs in many flat lands: when those lands had been
cleared, the shortage of labour had precluded the removal of stumps.* In Trini-
dad, a wet heavy soil capable of pulling the shoes off horses compounded the
stump problem and made ploughing, for the most part, unrewarding.^ Guiana
estates were covered with surface drains and canals. To effect proper drainage
the land had to be ploughed at right angles to the drains, but these ubiquitous
obstacles were too wide for the passage of oxen and plough.' In both Guiana and
Trinidad, opportunities for employment of ploughs were further limited by the
universal use of ratoons.'
The great economies occasioned by the use of the plough in the United States
and Europe depended upon a powerful and efficient draught animal. No such
beast was available to West Indians. Neither the light creole horse nor the mule
were suitable for ploughing in stiff tropical soils, and the powerful draught horse
had severe acclimatization problems. ^ Attempts to introduce the draught horse
to Jamaica failed.® In Barbados, the mortality rate of horses of all kinds was about
25 per cent of the whole stock per year.^" Planters were obliged to employ teams of
oxen—frequently 12 in number. Their use involved serious harnessing problems,
and the number of cattle required for ploughing exceeded the capacity of some
estates to pasture them.
On many slave labour estates, the substitution of the plough for manual labour
proved both exasperating and uneconomical. An innovative Jamaican pro-
prietor who insisted that animal power replace the labour of slaves in opening the
land suffered a common disappointment:
1 J.Davy, The IVest Indies, Before and Since Slave Emancipation (18=,.^), pp. 113—14.
* R . S c h o m b u r g k , The History of Barbados U848), pp. 86---/. * P a r e s , o p . cit. p . i i i .
* A. G. Garmichacl, Domestic Afanners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the
West Indies (1834), 11, 156-7.
* Evidence of Lionel Lee before the Subcommittee of the .Agricultural and Immigration Society' of
Trinidad, July 1841, enclosed in P.R.O. G.O. 295/134, No. 85.
« S.C. on West India Colonies (P.P. 1842, xra), QQ. 2067-B.
' Ratoons are the new growth which sprouts naturally from the roots of cane plants after cutting. As a
rule they yield less saccharine juice than fresh plants, and their yield generally diminishes eadi year.
* G. E. Gumper, 'Labor Demand and Supply in the Jamaica Sugar Industry', 1830—1950', Social and
Economic Studies, 11 (1954), 63.
* T. Jelly, A Brief Enquiry into the Condition ofJamaica :: 1847), p. 48.
1* Schomburgk, op. cit. p. 165.
 PLANTER CLASS 45I
I impressed this wish of mine upon the minds of my agents with all my power; but
the only result has been the creating of a very considerable additional expense in
the purcheise of ploughs, oxen, and farming implements; the awkwardness, and
still more obstinacy, of the few negroes, whose services were indispensable, was not
to be overcome: they broke plough after ploi^h, and ruined beast after beast, till
the attempt was abandoned in despair.^
Many m.anagers believed that ploughing could not be satisfactorily performed
until experienced European ploughmen were brought out to the estates. During
the early nineteenth century ploughmen were introduced to the islands in
increcising numbers, but their transfer from temperate to torrid working con-
ditions and their susceptibility to rum commonly caused a breakdown in their
health.
II
In manufacturing, as iii agriculture, the old West Indian system has suffered
censure. Every estate milled its own cane by employing animal, wind, or water
power. Water-wheels generated the most power; cattle-mills ground slowly
with least force and least efficiency; but all three systems possessed deficiencies.^
One of the foremost authorities to have written on the Caribbean, Prof. L. J.
Ragatz, upbraided the planters for their excessive and unnecessary use of cattle-
mills, charging that the rude and inefficient cattle-mill was the typical device
of the West Indian plantations.^ The influence of Ragatz upon West Indian
historians has been profound, but his criticism is inappropriate because it fails to
pay sufficient heed to environmental conditions. To support his contention,
Ragatz produced figures showing the number and type of mills being employed
in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago in a single selected year.* His choice of Tobago
in 1775 and Trinidad in 1808 was regrettable. Tobago was in its infancy as a
sugar island. In 1770 it produced only 84 tons of sugar;' the system of production
there was among the most prinaitive in the Caribbean and remained so through-
out the nineteenth century. In Trinidad sugar was grown on the level plains
adjacent to the Gulf of Paria. Wind was irregular, and although water was
abundant it lay in sluggish rivers or in tidal marshes and could not be exploited
readily as a power source. The total number of mills recorded by Ragatz for
Jamaica in 1768 falls far short of Bryan Edwards's estimate of the number of

^ Lewis, op. cit. p. 325.

^ The grinding power of windmills was irregular. A prolonged lvdl could bring the manufacturing
process to a standstill, causing canes already cut to sour, and throwing the harvest into July when rains
were probable and hurricanes possible. The initial cost of an iron water-wheel and the masonry aqueduct
needed to convey water was high, and water-wheels enjoyed no immunity from the capriciousness of
nature. Sugar grinding occurred during the driest period of the year, and drought conditions often
depleted the water sources used to power the giant wheels. A drought in Jamaica in 1846 reduced the
grinding power of the Worthy Park water-wheel to a mere three horsepower. See Craton and Walvin,
op. cit. p. 222.
* L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean (New York, 1928), pp. 613.
* Ragatz's figures, op. cit. p. 61, were as follows:
Colony Tear Cattle-MUls Water-MUls WindmUls
Jamaica 1768 369 235 44
Tobago 1775 52 9 23
Trinidad 1808 257 8 7
* Deerr, op. cit. i, 202.
458 W. A. OREEN
Jamaica plantations in that period,^ and it takes no account of Edwards's infer-
ence that some properties had either two cattle-mills or a cattle-mill and some
other power system.* Since two cattle-mills were as costly to construct and more
costly to maintain than a single water-mill, there is little likelihood that a pro-
prietor having access to reliable water sources and the superior grinding power
of a water wheel would carelessly adopt an inferior cattle-powered system.
Ragatz declared that the presence in Grenada in 1772 of 95 water-mills, 12
windmills, and only 18 cattle-mills was indicative of enlightened French in-
fluences.' On the contrary-, national genius had nothing to do with it. Sugar
was generally cultivated in the western, or leeward, sections of all the Windward
Islands. Interior mountain ranges obstructed the flow of prevailing winds,
rendering windmills generally unfeasible. At the same time the mountains attrac-
ted rainfall, and consequently these islands enjoyed an abundance of streams for
the generation of water power.
Solid masonr\- windmills were a fixture on most estates in Barbados and the
Leeward Islands. Easterly winds confronted no natural barriers in their transit
across the countryside ofBarbados or the level lands of north and central Antigua.
In Jamaica, windmills existed on some coastal estates, but the abundance of rain-
fall and surface streams along the north coast encouraged the use of water-wheels.
South of the central mountain barrier, neither wind nor rainfall was reliable:
water-wheels were employed where feasible, animal power where necessary.
A distinction should be made between highly productive large estates and
small properties. Throughout the islands there were many marginal operators
whose inferior properties were not advantageously located with resp>ect to free
wind and water. The rude mills located on such estates raised the absolute number
of cattle-mills employed in the colonies even though they had little impact on
the volume of sugar exports. It is clear that the rude cattle-mill was not heedlessly
adopted by British planters; nor was it the typical crushing apparatus in the
British Caribbean.*
Many contemporaries contended that steam power offered a solution to
milling problems which W^est Indians blindly rejected. On the contrary, steam
was introduced in the British West Indies around 1800,° and the British colonists
remained well ahead of the French and Brazilians in this aspect of sugar tech-
nology.* A steam engine was tried verv' early on Eldorado Estate in Trinidad:'
several mills were under steam power in Vere, Jamaica, in 1823 f and two engines
were operating in Nevis in 1825.* The engineering of steam devices was primitive
^ Hall, op. cit. p. 82.
* B. Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (1801), 3rd cdn,
n, 292.
3 Ragatz, op. cit. p. 61.
* In a report prepared for a French commiasioner who was examining agricultural methods in Jamaica
in 1839, it was stateid: "As water mills are universaliy resorted to, wherever tfae situation is suited for them,
steam engines can only combine economy with expeditiousneas where cattle mills now prevail.'"—Report
enclosed in Smith to Glene^, 5 Feb. 1839, P.R.O. G.O. 137/237.
^ Pares, op. cit. p. 115. There was an attempt, apparently unsuccessful, to establish a steam-driven
sugar mill in Jamaica as early as 1770.—^Hall, op. cit. p. 69.
* Deerr, op. cit. 11, 552-4. " Carmichael, op. cit. n, 267-8.
8 G. R. Williams, A Tour Through the Island ofjoaruaca,from the Western to the Eastern End, in the 2'ear 1823
(1827), pp. 198-9.
» H. N. Goleridge, Six Month in the West Indies in 1823(1826), pp. 196-7.
 PLANTER CLASS 453
in the early nineteenth century and steam engines were just as liable to be dis-
abled as windmills. A windmill would resume turning with the renewzJ of a
breeze, but steam engines broken by careless treatment required the repair
services of skilled machinists. Spare parts were unobtainable in the West Indies.
Foundries were located in the principal ports, but distances between the mills and
the towns made the repair process tedious, time-consuming, and costly. In the
mid-century when superior steam equipment was made available and repair
facilities were commonplace, the planters of Trinidad and Guiana unifonnly
adopted these engines. Their later actions did not indicate a superior willingness
to innovate any more than their earlier employment of animal power had ex-
hibited woeful conser\'atism. In those colonies there had been no viable alterna-
tive to animal power until the arrival of dependable steam engines and adequate
repair facilities.^
West Indian estates produced a raw brown sugar called muscovado. The open
pan process by which it was made was crude and wasteful, but British mercantile
restrictions, not the conservatism of the planters, inhibited the introduction of
more sophisticated manufacturing techniques and equipment. In order to pro-
tect metropolitan sugar refiners, the imperial government established a prohibi-
tive duty on all forms of refined colonial sugar. Planters who improved the
quality of their product above the level of muscovado by employing either a
claying or a vacuum process were liable to a punitive duty of ;^7 4s. 4d. per cwt
(see Table i). In 1833 the proprietor of Richmond Estate in British Guiana
secured a vacuum pan at very high cost. This machinery was especially valuable
in British Guiana where excessive humidity reduced the ignition quality of fuel,
prevented brisk boiling on the open pan process, and caused the production of an
inordinately high ratio of molasses to sugar.* The better-quality product obtained
from the vacuum process on Richmond Estate was refused admission to the British
market at the rate of duty charged on muscovado (24s. per cwt.). Rather than
pay the outrageous tariff on refined sugar (i68s. 4d. per cwt.) the planter re-
turned his shipment to Demerara for sale in the colony.^ The heavy penalties
against clayed or vacuum pan sugar were not withdrawn until 1845, ^°*^ until
1874 muscovado continued to enjoy a tax advantage in the home market.

Table i. British Sugar Duties, 1830-4.3, per cwt.

Date Colonial Muscovado Refined Sugar
1830 24s. 168s. 4d.
1841 25s. 2d. 176s. 5d.
Equal to White Claytd Muscovado
{vacuum pan)
1845 i6s. 4d. 14s. i66s.
Source: Deerr, op. cit., n, 430-42.

^ In 1841 the proprietor of a foundry in Port of Spain submitted the following advertisement recom-
mending his establishment: "in this Island the Planter may now, with confidence, erect a Steam Engine,
that paragon of power and science, without that former natural dread that if anything broke or went
wrong how could it be replaced or repaired."—Part of Spain Gazette, xvi, 16 April 1841.
* R. W. Beachey, The British West Indies Sugar Industry in the Late MinOeenth Century (Oxford, 1957), p. 67.
* Bean to Smyth, 7 Feb. 1834, enclosed in P.R.O. G.O. 111/131, No. 78. Also, Stewart to Lefevre, 17
June 1834, P.R.O. G.O. 111/134.
454 W. A. GREEN
British Guiana produced the most significant technical improvements in the
years preceding emancipation. Tramways were laid down on some estates to
facilitate the removal of megass^ from the grinding mill. The construction of miUs
was altered so that labourers bearing canes to the mill were relieved of a tiring
up-hill trudge. An intricate system of intersecting trenches was developed to
reduce the distance which freshly cut canes had to be carried to the punts which
bore them to the mill yard. Also, animal power replaced human labour in con-
veying cane-laden punts along the waterways of the estates.^

Ill
At the end of the eighteenth century, Otaheite cane was introduced from the
South Pacific. Although its juices were lighter and less substantial than those of
the native variety, its yield was considerably greater.* Within a few years
Otaheite cane had almost supplanted the earlier variety.* Ironically, the planters'
swift conversion to high-yielding Otaheite contributed to the saturation of the
British market, the fall in sugar prices, and the embarrassment of the planters.
During the first three decades of the nineteenth century when scientific agricul-
ture received increasing attention in Britain, West Indian planters suffered
serious economic reversals. Rigorous economy and retrenchment became doc-
trine on Caribbean estates, and it is fair to assume that experimentation in new-
techniques was as often discouraged by economic embarrassment as by the
paralysis of will.
The abolition of slavery shook the planting system. Proprietors lost their
captive labour force during slack seasons, and whatever aggravations or agrono-
mic deficiencies may have accompanied the use of implements in the cultivation
of cane, planters were obliged to tolerate them rather than endure the heavier
expense of employing an excessive number of hoe-wielding wage workers.
Throughout the Caribbean, agricultural societies were formed to facilitate the
exchange of information on aU aspects of sugar production and to encourage the
improvement of agrarian skills. The Governor of Jamaica, Lord Elgin, estab-
lished the Royal Agricultural Society. Smaller associations were formed in
separate parishes. Agricultural shows were periodically held featuring exhibitions
of stock as well as competition in the use of ploughs and harrows. Money prizes
were awarded to managers who produced the largest crop on the smallest acre-
age, to others who devised new implements for the cultivation of the soil, and to
those who made successful innovations in the manufacturing process. Soil
chemistrv' evoked great interest, and special attention was given to experiments
with imported fertilizer, notably guano. The Westmoreland Agricultural Society
in Jamaica di\dded its parish into eight districts according to soil t\^es, and
meetings were held, in turn, at an estate in each district.^ Similar "perambula-
tory" meetings were conducted in Barbados.* In December 1843 an agricultural
1 Megass is the refuse of crushed cane. It was stacked, dried, and used as iuel in the boiling house.
^KepoTtoiCEQiot, Appendix to a Seportfrom the Select Committee on SlMety (P.P. i83i-2,xx).
' In Jamaica, Otaheite produced 2 J hogsheads per acre on land which had yielded only i J under native
cane.
* J. Stewart, An Account ofjamaka audits Inhabitants (1808), pp. 103-4.
* Elgin to Stanley, 17 April 1B44, P,R,O. C O . 137/279: Hall, op. cit. p. 28,
* Sdiomburgk, op. cit. p. 133.
 PLANTER CLASS 455
meeting in St Catherine's drew representatives from nearly two-thirds of Ja-
maica's estates,^ and in 1846 approximately 5,000 people attended the Cornwall
agricultural show.*
There was commendable enterprise in British Guiana at the start of the free
period. Capital was generously invested in steam engines for sugar mills; eleva-
tors were installed to convey cut canes to mill houses from punts which had
transported them from the field; megass carriers were adopted for transferring
the refuse of squeezed canes to storehouses.^ A steam-propelled canal excavator
was patented in 1836. It was designed to discharge silt from the numerous canals
which traversed Guiana plantations—an operation which was extremely hateful
to labourers who stood waist deep in water shovelling the mud on to adjoining
banks—but the device was badly underpowered and the high cost of developing
a workable machine forced the abandonment of the project.* Alexander Macrae
developed a novel steam-driven plough which was dragged across the land on a
rope suspended between iron punts located on opposite sides of a cane piece,
but this device proved too awk\vard for general service.^
The intricate network of surface drains which laced Guiana estates precluded
the use of orthodox animal-drawn agricultural implements, and planters were
forced to rely on expensive manual labour to perform all field operations. The
extent of water retained in the soil—especially water which held a large amount
of saline matter in solution—damaged the quality^ and colour of Guiana sugar.*
In the mid-1840's, the planters launched an experiment in sub-surface drainage
in the hope of eliminating open drains and rendering the land suitable for
labour-saving implements. Dr John Shier, an agricultural chemist employed
by the colony, was granted a section of La Penitence Estate which he cleared
and fitted with underground tile drains. A steam engine was employed to extract
excess water from the tiles, and the land was ploughed and planted. The first
canes grown under these conditions were large and healthy, and their yield per
acre was twice that of canes produced on neighbouring fields.''
The planters were elated. Referring to an Act of Parliament* which committed
the British government to assist agricultural interests in the mother country,
the Court of Policy petitioned the Crown for monetary assistance to undertake
large-scale drainage of colonial land.' The Secretary of State for the Colonies,
constrained by the economic crisis which wracked Europe in the late 'forties and
by his own laissez-faire principles, refused to consider a loan for agricultural
improvements. He informed the Governor of the colony that undertakings of that
kind were the responsibility ofthe Guiana government and should, most properly,
be "gradually effected by individual exertion".^"
In response to the Secretary of State's recommendation, a group of Berbice
1 Elgin to Stanley, 20 Dec. 1843, P.R.O. C.O. 137/275. * TheFalmouth Post, xn, i Sept. 1846.
' S.C. on West India Colonies (P.P. 1842, xin), QQ. 2534-6.
* Smyth to Glenelg, 13 June 1836, P.R.O. C.O. 111/145.
6 S.C. on West India Colonies (P.P. 1842, xin), QQ. 2069-72.
* Petition of the Combined Court, in Appendix to the Third Report from the Select Committee on Sugar and
Coffee Planting (P.P. 1847-8, xxm).
' H. Dalton, The History of British Guiana (1855), i, 501. * 9 & 10 Viet. Cap. 101.
' Extract of minutes of the Combined Court, i March 1847, in Appendix to Ae Third Report from the
S.C. on Sugar and Coffee Planting fP.P. 1847-8, xxm).
1" Grey to Light, 14 April 1847, ibid.
 V^. A. GREEN
planters formed a company for the purpose of introducing a further five-year
experiment in sub-surface drainage. This endeavour—although endorsed by a
committee of absentees in London—was defeated by the planters' inability' to
raise sufficient capital. In effect, this failure proved fortuitous, for during the
second and third years of Shier's experiment, his crops were deeply disappointing.
Underground drains became choked with roots; the canes grew weakly; many
of them rotted; and their yield was sharply diminished.^ Although British Guiana
continued to lead the colonies in the use of advanced milling and boiling equip-
ment, the mode of cultivation in the colony remained what it had been in the
time of slaver)'. Da\a' considered it the rudest in the West Indies, noting that
weeds grew thick among the cane and that the hoe and cutlass remained the
sole implements of husbandry'.- This rudeness was not occasioned by stubborn
conservatism or inadequate enterprise. Rather, it resulted from a chronic short-
age of labour, the low efficiency of that which existed, and the ubiquitous drain-
age problems of the Guiana estates.
Implemental agriculture was most enthusiastically adopted in Jamaica where
planters exhibited unprecedented initiative in altering traditional methods of
cultivation. On many sugar properties, however, dramatic modifications were
not possible. Jamaica offered a wide range of terrain and climatic conditions, and
during the era of slavery, sugar cultivation had reached from the coastal peri-
meter, along river valleys, to rich interior basins.* Cane had been planted on
sharply rising uplands, where fertile soil and good seasons compensated for the
greater difficulty of tilling, cutting, and carting the crop. Observing the great
variety of conditions and procedures in Jamaica, Lord Elgin advised his superiors
in London that the progressive techniques adopted by planters on well-situated,
level estates could not be duplicated throughout the colony.* On dry-weather
properties in Vere, where cane was produced primarily from ratoons, animal-
drawn implements were of little value.^ It was confidently predicted at the outset
of the free period that mountain properties would have to resort to cattle ranching
or suffer abandonment because of their inability to use the plough as a means of
reducing labour costs.*
Level lands and gently undulating cane fields which were free of obstructions
were universally brought under the plough. Local craftsmen improved on light-
weight European and American ploughs by developing rugged, deep-cutting
implements tailored to the soil requirements of individual estates.' Harrows of
various types were introduced in the 1840's but they were received with less
enthusiasm and were employed more sparingly than the plough. This device
was not serviceable in stiff or stony soil, nor was it useful in hard sloping ground
where it was liable to slide into a row of cane, cutting up sprouts and damaging
roots. As a weeding implement it was not as effective as the hand hoe, and con-
sequently it had to be employed more frequently. Imaginative planters modified
conventional harrows to meet their specific requirements, adding scarifying tools
^ At the end of the century another attempt to effect sub-surface drainage was attempted in British
Guiana with the same discouraging results.—^Beachey, op. cit. p. 97.
2 Dav>', op. cit. p. 359. S Craton and Walvin, op. cit. pp. 4-5.
* Elgin to Stanley, 20 April 1843, F.R.O. C O . 137 273.
^ Report of Hall Pringle, i June 1845, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/284, No. 79.
6 Smith to Glenelg, 5 Feb 1839, P.R.6. C O 137 237. ' Hall, op. cit p. 47.
 PLANTER CLASS 457

and mould boards which thrust the earth on to the roots of young plants as a
means of smothering weeds. In the Liguanea Plain, where the soil was light and
the harrow and plough were employed, planters reduced the cost of cultivation
from £6 or £"] per acre to £2 or ^(^3.1
In the free period as in slavery the extent of cultivation on an estate was
regulated by its capacity to har\'est and manufacture its product. Although the
introduction of animal-powered implements afforded the best-situated estates the
means of expanding sugar cultivation, expansion was prevented by labour
shortages at crop and by the absence of any alternative to manual labour in
cutting cane. Many planters were compelled to reduce their sugar acreage,
confining cultivation to their richest soil.^ This was always an act of necessity,
never of deliberate policy, since an estate's overhead costs—^including salaries,
taixes, buildings, and machinery—^remained fairly stable whether it produced
100 or 300 hogsheads ofsugar.^ There was no satisfactory way to compensate for a
decline in sugar acreage, but vigorous efforts were made through intensive man-
uring and a revision of techniques to gain the greatest possible yield from the
land in cultivation. Rich, light-weight fertilizers which could be applied to the
land with minimal use of labour became essential to the planters. Sulphate of
ammonia and bone dust were imported in some quantity, but guano quickly
became the most widely applied supplementary fertilizer.* By 1844 guano was in
general use in Jamaica and in many islands of the Lesser Antilles.
On many estates the distance between cane plants was lengthened from four
and a half to six feet.® Although this permitted more abundant weed growth in the
early life of the cane, the wider banks could be cleaned by the use of animal-
powered implements. Moreover, because each plant was allowed greater space,
a larger number of healthy shoots could be obtained from fewer cane tops, and
consequently labour costs involved in securing and planting cane tops were
reduced; while canes received more sunlight, grew rapidly, matured quicker,
and stooled out, covering the adjacent soil. The task of trashing—a form of
labour for which there was no mechanical device—^was thereby diminished, and
cutting was made somewhat easier. The introduction of implemental tillage
rendered the maintenance of low-yielding ratoons inefficient and unprofitable
on estates having level, easily worked land and a fair prospect of good seasons, for
new plants promising higher yield could be set out at comparatively small cost at
a time of year when labour was generally available.'

^ Elgin to Stanley, 20 May 1843, P.R.O. C O . 137/274.

« Smith to Glendg, 5 Feb. 1839, P.R.O. C O . 137/337; Craton and Walvin, op. cit. pp. 213-14.
' Evidence ofJames Tuckett, manager of Dawkins Caymanas, and George Price, manager ofWorthy
Park, before a Committee of the House of Assembly, Votes of the Jamaica Assembly, 1845, Appendix
LXVI.
* Initially planters feared that guano affected the quality of sugar by producing a greasy substance in the
liquor. Experiments produced varying results, but in most cases sugar yields were substantially increased
by the use of guano.—Report of David Ewart, Dec. 1845, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/287, No. 2.
* Colebrooke to Grey, 25 March 1850, P.R.O. C O . 28/172; Hall, op. cit. p. 49.
* Evidence of George Price before a Committee of the House of Assembly, Votes ofthe Jamaica Assembly,
1845, Appendix LXVI.
458 W. A. GREEN
IV
Implemental tillage and improved techniques permitted savings to the planters,
but they offered no panacea for the ills which beset the plantations in the free
period. The cost of cultivation represented only a modest portion of the total
expenses of a sugar estate, and those expenses were only partially reduced by the
substitution of animal power. At Se\alle Estate, Jamaica, where soil conditions
prevented the use of the harrow and rendered the plough only partially service-
able, labour costs incurred in all agricultural functions formed slightly more than
38 per cent of the estate's labour bill for 1844. In relation to the whole annual
expenses of the estate, the cost of cultivation constituted merely 22 per cent (see
Table 2). By the most extensive use of machinery the manager of Worthy Park
trimmed his number of field labourers by 75 per cent, but the cost of labour in
cultivating the land was merely halved. More skilled workers were needed to
wield ploughs and harrows, and their wages were higher than those of ordinary
field workers.'-
Table 2. Annual Costs Incurred at Seville Estate
St Ann's, Jamaica, 1844
Labour £ d.
s.
Total Amount expended in Cane Cultivation 316 16 Ii
Expense of Manurmg 125 0 3
Expense of Mamifacturing Sugar 348 7 l O i
Expense of Manufacturing Rum 36 13 -i
Tradesmen 106 12 4i
Maintenance of Cattle and Pastures 79 '7 0
Maintenance of Fences and Stone Walls 38 13 0
Overlookers, Rangers, etc. 25 7 3
Domestics and Provisions 54 0 6
Repairing the High Road 3 14 9
Miscellaneous 56 9 3
Total 1,191 12 0

Contingencies (Salaries, Taxes, Supplies; 1,016 13 7

Total Cost of Estate Operation 2,208 5

Deduct Receipt of Rents 215 4 6

Total Expended i ,993 i i

Source: Abstract of a Return to the Royal Agricultural Society,
enclosed in Report of John Woolfreys, Magistrate, i May 1845,
bound in P.R.O. C.O. 137 284, No. 79

Worthy Park Estate offers an outstanding example of the perils associated

with the employment of sophisticated fanning and milling machinery in the
British West Indies. Between 1843 and 1B47, gross annual expenditures on the
estate rose from ;^5,542 to^i 8,856. Most of the increase represented investments
in farm implements, factory equipment, a steam-powered mill, and a moveable
light railway several miles in length which was employed to transfer cane to the
factory. With these de\'ices the progressive manager of the estate hoped to in-
crease his output from about 230 hogsheads in 1843 to ^75 hosgheads in 1846.
'^ Evidence of George Price before a Committee of the House of Assembly, Votes of the Jamaica Assetnbly,
1845, Appendix LXVI.
 PLANTER CLASS 459
Regrettably, his rails proved too light to provide adequate balance for heavy
laden tram-carts, and they rusted in the wet soil. The new mill sent from. England
had numerous constructional defects and broke down at the height of crop,
causing a loss of ^^8,000. The estate's yield in 1846 was 302 hogsheads; in 1847
it fell to 266 hogsheads, far short of the anticipated 875.^
During the difficult years of adjustment in Jamaica, Lord Elgin repeatedly
commended the planters for their vigorous pursuit of progressive agricultural
methods. Most assuredly, there were recalcitrant m^anagers who resisted innova-
tion, but the reports of stipendiary magistrates^ are filled with praise for the
greater number who, as David Ewart asserted, manifested "the most judicious
and vigorous efforts . . . to improve cultivation".' In 1845 one of the most inde-
pendent magistrates in the island reported "astonishing improvement" in the
character of cultivation, noting that the Jamaica planter had earned the title
"agriculturist".*
This title was earned in the face of overwhelming natural misfortunes. During
the first eight years of freedom, Jamaica suffered five years of prolonged and
paralysing drought. In the parish of Vere, one crop in three was virtually des-
troyed, and planters expressed fear that the island had sustained a dramatic
change of climate. Drought devastated herds, reducing the quantity and value of
their manure.* Without rain it was impossible to assess with desired accuracy the
value of supplementary fertilizers, and there is little doubt that the transforma-
tion in agricultural techniques—^however commendable—^was both delayed and
stunted by this unprecedented succession of dry years. Stipendiary magistrates
bewailed the hardship of the planters, reporting extraordinary scenes of distress.
Twickenham Park, a large partly irrigated plantation in St Catherine which
combined sugar production with cattle ranching, made no crop in 1846, and
ponds which supplied its stock dried up during a period of eight months when no
rain fell.' At Dawkins Caymanas, where various ploughs and harrows, a megass
elevator, and a variety of" artificial fertilizers were in use, only 21 hogsheads of
sugar out of an anticipated 200 were produced.' Streams disappeared and wells
ran dry in Clarendon, preventing the manufacture of cane. WTien rains returned
the cane grew luxuriantly, but subterranean cavities remained dry. During
1845, a favourable year, one Vere property did not have enough water in its wells
to supply a steam engine, and the estate's manager was obliged to haul water in
puncheons from the river Ninho, a distance of five miles, to keep the engine
going.8 The effect of drought upon the cost of production on five Vere estates
may be seen in Table 3.
It was an undeserved twist of fate which crippled the Jamaica planters during
the trying years of transition, eroding their assets, undermining their credit, and

I Craton and Walvin, op. cit. pp. 220-2.

* Stipendiary magistrates were independent officers appointed at the time of emancipation to adjudi-
cate disputes between planters and freedmen. Part of their job was to report on developments in the
sugar industry.
8 Report of D. Ewart, May 1844, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/279, No. 80.
* Report of H. Pringle, June 1845, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/284, No. 79; Hall. op. cit. p. 27.
* Reports of stipendiary magistrates, enclosed in Elgin to Stanley, 26 June 1844, P.R.O. C O . 137/279.
« Report of W. Ramsay, 1846, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/289, No. 17. ' Ibid.
8 Report of H. Pringle, June 1845, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/284, No. 79.
460 W. A. GREEN

testing beyond measure their self-confidence and composure. The drought of

1846 was in its final debilitating stages when news reached the island that the
imperial parliament had passed the Sugar Duties Act establishing a schedule by
which the preferential tariff for colonial muscovado would be systematically
reduced until 1851 when all duties on sugar imported to the United Kingdom—
whether slave or free grown—would be equalized. This was a crowning blow to
a planter class dispirited by its misfortunes. During the succeeding two decades
the island's sugar industr\- sustained a decline unparalleled in the British
Caribbean.
Table 3. Cost of Sugar Production on Five Vere Estates,
Cost of Sugar
per cwt after
Total Expenses Sugar Rum deducting Rum
Estate Tear Weather £ 3. d. •cwt) \pns) £ s. d.
Salt Savanna 1844 drought 2,098 19 10 130 I 16 0 II
1845 good 2,447 19 2 943 27J 2 7 II
1846 drought 2,427 18 2 569 16J 3 18 3
1847 good 2,650 0 0 2,831 80 0 9 7
Hillside 1844 drought 3,040 II 6 231 6 12 18 5
1845 good 2,485 11 6 i 1,980 60 0 18 I
1846 drought 2,642 14 10 992 23 2 5 3
1847 good 3,000 0 0 2,755 112 0 8 9i
Brazaletto 1844 drought 2,648 9 I 214 3 12 4 0
1845 good 1.991 9 6} 1,122 29 I 8 6
1846 drought 2,017 19 5 267 12 6 19 10
1847 good 2,633 3 7 1,716 41 I 3 0
Hake Hall 1844 drought 2,533 18 0 212 5i II 10 3i
1845 good 2,405 14 2i 2,416 57 0 14 44
1846 drought 2,448 9 8J 1,003 38 I 19 5
1847 good 3,352 10 0 2,904 88 0 13 4i
Moreland 1844 drought 3.135 8 3 i 660 19 4 9 9
1845 good 2,516 12 4J 2,508 57 0 1 4 10
1846 drought 3.598 10 7 1,881 72 I 8 8
1847 good 4,370 0 0 3.943 90 0 1 4 10

Source: Report ofa Committee of theJamaica Assemblv. 1847, enclosed in P.R.O. C O . 137/;^95) No. 17

Dramatic innovations in the manufacture of sugar were not common in the

West Indies following emancipation. The centrifuge was developed in 1837 as a
quick and efficient means of separating molasses from sugar after boiling, but it
required heavier motive power than most estates possessed, and saving in British
Guiana, its adoption in the colonies was delayed until later in the century.^ The
vacuum pan received wide attention in Guiana during the 'forties and 'fifties, but
several factors inhibited its use in the islands. Many planters, especially those of
Jamaica, were enjoying a very considerable return on their rum; consequently,
they placed great emphasis on the production of a rich molasses. The vacuum pan
generated a poor-grade molasses capable of producing only a low-quality rum.
The cost of establishing a vacuum pan factory was prodigious. In 1846, a vacuum
pan was introduced at Retreat Estate in Westmoreland, Jamaica, at a cost of
3^3,000.^ That amount was greater than the total annual expenses of most
Caribbean properties. Even in British Guiana it was considered imprudent to

1 Beachey, op. cit. pp. 72-3. * Hall, op. cit. p. 92.

 PLANTER CLASS 461

adopt this equipment on estates making less than 500 hogsheads a year,i and
there were probably not a half-dozen island plantations capable of yielding such
a crop.
As noted earlier, steam engines were installed on many estates which had
previously employed cattle- or windmills. In Trinidad and Guiana the transition
to steam was almost universal.* By 1846, 33 steam engines were employed in St
Kitts, and this mode of power was rapidly replacing the windmill.' According to
a local almanac printed in 1849, 23 out of the 63 mills operating in Tobago were
steam driven.* 108 of Jamaica's 330 estates were milling by steam in 1854; water-
mills were in use in 125 other properties." In the Windward Islands, water-mills
continued to predominate. Barbados and Antigua retained their windmills,
the former because strong easterly winds were most reliable over the island during
crop, the latter because a severe shortage offresh water inhibited the introduction
of steam power.
Most planters who possessed properly functioning wind- or water-mills could
not justify a change to steam power in the straitened economic circumstances
of the free period. The manufacture of sugar required balance between the mill-
ing and boiling operations. An efficient steam system speeded the process of
grinding and permitted estates with an abundance of labour to plant more canes
and to harvest them with greater alacrity. The rate at which steam milling pro-
duced cane juice usually exceeded the receptive capacity of boiling houses
which had been geared to other power systems. Ifsteam was to be used efficiently,
the boiling house required major renovation. Proprietors of large estates having
cattle-mills—especially those of Trinidad and Guiana—^were well advised to
invest in steam engines because the greater capacity of steam-powered mills
permitted them to expand cane cultivation. But most planters in the Lesser
Antilles, occupying estates of 350 acres or less, could not expand their cane fields
significantly nor could they expect to obtain production increases commensurate
with the cost of a steam-powered mill and new boiling equipment.
The abolition of slavery obliged the planters to reconsider the entire concept
of a unitary, self-contained sugar estate, and it occasioned among them an in-
creased interest in the prospect of central factories. Theoretically, centralization
would have relieved the planters of their excruciating anxieties over labour
during crop and would have permitted them to cultivate more cane with greater
care. The French had erected six central factories—two at Martinique, one in
Maria Galante, and three in Guadaloupe—after the earthquake of 1843 had
shattered a large percentage of the mills located on those islands.' Although the
French factories produced little or no profit, their existence offered a challenge to
British colonists. During the late 1840's two attempts were made to establish cen-
tral factories in Jamaica, both of them unsuccessful. The Colonial Office refused
to endorse one of the plans because of an indiscretion committed by its promoter.'
The second project failed by virtue of its inability to attract capital—a common
1 Barkly to Newcastle, 26 May 1854, P.R.O. C O . 137/323.
» W. G. ScwcU, The Ordeal ofFree Labor in the British West Indies (New York 1862), p. 138.
* Davy, op. cit. p. 454. * Ibid. p. 259.
* Report of R. Hill, 25 Jan. 1856, enclosed in P.R.O. C.O. 137/330, No. 35; Hall, op. cit. p. 71.
* H. G. Cobbe to Colebrooke, 28 July 1833. enclosed in P.R.O. G.O. 28/179, No. 57.
"> Gordon Gorrespondence, P.R.O. G.O. 137/294; Hall, op. cit. p. 77.
462 W. A. GREEN
problem in a community haunted by the Sugar Duties Act and suffering the
lowest prices for its principal staple since 1831.^
In the best of times the introduction of central factories would have been fraught
with problems. Many planters believed that central factories would exercise a
monopoly position, placing the cultivator at the mercy of the manufacturer. Those
who specialized in a particular brand of rum would have been prevented from
doing so under a system of centr^ll manufacture. Merchants who held mortgages
on West Indian property might have been reluctant to permit central factories a
prior claim on their clients' sugar. The poor quality of colonial roads and the
high cost of wainage required the introduction of a new and easy form of trans-
portation linking the central mill with its dependent estates. It took 20 tons of
cane to produce a single ton of muscovado, and no group of estates possessed
either the stock or the carts to carry this enormous weight of vegetation the
greater distances required by central mills. The construction of railways or
tramways was an essential preliminary to the establishment of central factories,
but metropolitan investors whose money was needed to build tramways, rail-
ways, or central factories were unwilling to sink their capital in the depressed
Caribbean colonies.
In the decade following emancipation, productivity and profitability fell in
the British Caribbean. In spite of the revolution in agricultural procedures and
the widespread adoption of steam power, sugar remained a labour-intensive
industry—especially at crop time—and the fractional sa\dngs made by the em-
ployment of new agricultural techniques was vastly offset by the higher cost and
lower reliability of free labour. Operating costs increased dramatically, and by
1846, when the Sugar Duties Act was passed, the average cost of making sugar
on Demerara or Jamaica estates was 30 to 40 per cent higher than that of the
slave labour estates of Cuba.^
The availability of labour and the degree of its discipline remained the crucial
factors determining the capacity of the estates to hold down costs and sur\-ive
the transition to freedom. In Jamaica, where technical innovations were most
widely adopted and the imagination of the planters most consistently compli-
mented, the sugar industry- suffered its most poignant defeat. In Barbados, where
traditional techniques were scarcely altered, the industry- enjoyed its greatest
growth and highest profits. Unlike their Jamaica counterparts, Barbados plan-
ters enjoyed good seasons and had the unparalleled advantage of a dense labour-
ing population which was compelled, by the circumstances of a small and fully
^ Sugar prices averaged 49s. per cwt in 1840, fell to an average of 39s. in 1841, then heldfirmlybetween
33s. and 37s. between 1842 and 1846. They fell sharply in 1847, and from 1848 to 1855 the wholesale price
for muscovado hovered between 22s. and 26s.—Return of Average Price of British Plantation and Foreign
Sugar (P.P. 1852-3, xcix), p. 567; (P.P. 1866, Lxvi), p. 683.
2 A committee of the Jamaica Assemibly sitting in 1847 examined 43 proprietors and estate attorneys,
some of whom managed 10 to 16 properties, and determined that the average cost of producing sugar by
free labour had been 22s. yjd. per cwt.—Report of Committee, enclosed in P.R.O. C.O. 137/295 No. 17.
Several Guiana proprietors who testified before the Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting
declared that their costs were higher than those of the average Jamaica planter. British consuls resident
in Cuba determined that the average cost of cultivation and manufacture, including interest on capital
mvested in land, houses, slaves, and machinery, was about i6s. In addition, Cuban planters did not ship
sugar overseas on their own account as the British planters did. Sugar was sold in Havana and the planters
were spared high agency costs.—^Appendix to Seventh Report of the S.C. on Sugar and Coffee Planting CP.P.
1847-8, xxiii).
 PLANTER CLASS 463

expropriated island, to perform consistent, dependable labour on the estates.

The combination of free trade and international economic crisis sealed the
fate of the old West Indian plantocracy: properties which had been valued
at j(|8o,ooo during slavery changed hands for a few hundred pounds in the
late 1840's.i Except in Barbados, where old family estates remained intact,
hundred of plantations reverted to bush. Others were subdivided into peasant
holdings. In Jamaica alone, 314 estates—^49 per cent of the colony's sugar
plantations—ceased cultivation between 1844 and 1854.* Many other properties
passed by default to metropolitan sugar merchants—their mortgagees—^who,
having invested little to acquire the estates, were able to perpetuate their cultiva-
tion. The eclipse of the British West Indian sugar industry which had begun in the
late eighteenth century was finally consummated by 1850. By no measure of
enterprise or resourcefulness had the old planter class been able to avert its
demise.
Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts

1 E.li.Stanicy,ClaimsandResourcesofthe West India Colonies: A Letter lo the Rt Hon. W. E.Gladstone, M.P.

(1850), p. 29.
* Hall, op. cit. p. 82.