History of the Caribbean: Plantations, Trade, and War in the Atlantic World by Frank Moya Pons (review)

An alternative title of this book might be ‘A Concise History of Caribbean Plantation Economy.’ Frank Moya Pons, the most widely read historian of the Dominican Republic, set out to write a book that reveals the structural similarities of Caribbean economies of diverse colonial affiliation and the continuities of their experience through historical time. His purpose is to restore balance to an historiography that feeds the perception of the Caribbean as a region of “kaleidoscopic fragmentation”; which is, in his opinion

misleading, because when one looks closely at the structural continuities of the plantation system, one can understand the Caribbean only as an organic economic system, as a throbbing heart continuously pumping sugar and other commodities to the world market via the Atlantic, while at the same time consuming millions of lives forcefully extracted from Africa and other parts of the world.

(pp. x–xi)

The author’s intellectual debt to plantation theorists is evident, as is the influence of world systems theory. He returns to these themes in the Epilogue where he asserts

the plantation system (is) the underlying structure that made the Caribbean economies very similar to each other, despite ecological and political variations….The connections that linked the plantations in the Caribbean with Africa, Europe and North America, both before and after the Industrial Revolution, are crucial to understanding the emergence of capitalism as a world economic system.

No other institution played the role that the plantation did in integrating the Caribbean into the world economy.

(p. 309, my emphasis)

Moya Pons’s approach is that of the historian, but it is a history that is anchored on analysis of the economic motive for colonisation, war and forced migration; the structures that were created; the demographic shifts that came about and the social forces to which these gave rise. Behind the sometimes bewildering succession of changes in colonial ownership, revolutions and restorations and ethnic interactions characteristic of the region’s history; he seeks to show an underlying logic that constitutes the glue of the Caribbean experience. However, this is not a book of simple economic determinism. The particularities and variations that occur from size, topography, metropolitan idiosyncrasy, natural events and subaltern resistance are amply treated. Political developments in the Caribbean colonies form the backdrop—sometimes conditioned, at other times conditioning—to the evolution of Caribbean plantation economy; while social formations assume diverse forms.

The book is organised into twenty chapters whose subjects combine temporal sequence with thematic focus. This facilitates exposition of the underlying message. Each chapter is subdivided into sections which elaborate or nuance the chosen theme; the carefully titled section headings alert the reader to the flow of the narrative. Some chapters treat with the rise and fall of the Caribbean sugar economies as they evolved from the 16^th to the early 20^th centuries; highlighting the role played by colonial monopolies, free trade and slave trading; trends in production, exports and prices; and technological change leading to centrales and colonos. Others feature the role of privateers and contraband, trade and wars; the American, French and Haitian Revolutions; abolitionism and crisis; new peasantries; migration and proletarians; and the emergence of sugar corporations. The author does not overlook the role played by other commodities: gold, indigo, ginger, cattle, salt, tobacco, and coffee all appear on stage, even if eventually they become only side shows to sugar. The clarity of the exposition and the ability to maintain a connecting thread to the narrative is a remarkable accomplishment, given the vastness and complexity of the subjects covered. It could only be possible by an author who has total command over his material, as Moya Pons obviously does.

Wisely, in a book of this kind, Moya Pons has chosen not to clutter his text with footnotes or endnotes or with bibliographic references in the body of the text. Instead, he has furnished the reader with...