American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898-1934

1. A Caribbean Plantation System

A Caribbean Plantation System Sugar plantations have been central institutions in the economic development ofthe Caribbean for the last five hundred years. All the islands ofthe Antilles experienced the growth ofplantation agriculture . The comparative study of plantation societies has provided important insights into the development ofeconomy and society in this region. This book is a study of the plantation economy of the Spanish Caribbean between the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 and the crisis that shook the foundations of the sugar industry of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in 1933-34. The colonial transfer ofthe islands ofCuba and Puerto Rico from Spain to the United States in 1898 and the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1916-24 opened the way for massive U.S. investments in sugar plantations. The combined sugar production of the three islands doubled from 433,000 tons in 1900 to 1,127,000 tons in 1902. Sugar output then doubled again between 1902 and 1910, reaching 2,470,000 tons. Between 1910 and 1919, production doubled once more and reached ~,o33,000 tons. At the end ofWorld War I the three islands produced close to one-third ofthe sugar sold in the world market. Production continued to increase until 192~ (6,7~ 3,000 tons) and fell thereafter because of a series of restrictive policies, first on the part of the Cuban government and then on the part of the United States, aimed at reducing overproduction and restoring prices. This expansion accentuated Cuba's traditional dependence on sugar exports, replaced coffee as the main 6 CARIBBEAN PLANTATION SYSTEM export of Puerto Rico, and elevated sugar to first rank among the Dominican Republic's export crops. Large parts of the islands were converted to cane agriculture , and the livelihood of millions of people became dependent on the international price of sugar. No region of the world ever experienced a process of expansion of sugarcane plantation agriculture comparable in scope and depth to that which took place in the Spanish Caribbean in the first three decades of this century. An examination of the expansion of sugar plantations in this region in the twentieth century necessarily ealls forth an inquiry into its specific features and how they compare to previous systems ofplantation agriculture in the Caribbean. The persistence of plantations in the Antillean archipelago throughout the centuries has attracted the attention ofscholars who have pondered their importance not only for the Caribbean but for the development of the world economy as a whole throughout its different stages since the formation ofa world market in the early sixteenth century. This book borrows its title from Eric Williams, whose scholarship is probably the best-known English-language synthesis of the development of plantation agriculture in the Caribbean from a world-historical perspective.1 The appropriation of the term "American Sugar Kingdom" from a scholar whose main interest was the development ofplantations based on slavery implies a comparative study of plantation agriculture across different historical epochs. Indeed, many of the questions raised in this book revolve around problems of continuity and discontinuity in plantation development. Boldly put, the question can be raised as follows: if the American Sugar Kingdom was indeed a plantation economy, how did it differ from previous plantation systems based on coerced labor in the history ofthe Caribbean? Conversely, what did this plantation system have in common with the Cuban slave plantations of the nineteenth century, the Haitian plantations of the eighteenth, the Barbadian plantations of the seventeenth, or even with the plantations of Hispaniola in the sixteenth century ? Can a concept that encompasses phenomena so distant in time and so different in nature contribute to our understanding of twentieth-century sugar monoculture? Plantations in the Caribbean have been viewed in one of three ways. The dependency and world-system approaches to the problem have emphasized the continuity ofthe large agricultural estates producing for the world market throughout the history of the Caribbean, while downplaying somewhat the differences between the diverse forms oflabor that have typified different plantation systems.2 In opposition to this view, "productionist"writers have emphasized local relations ofproduction and overlooked external, metropolis-satellite relations. The planta- CARIBBEAN PLANTATION SYSTEM 7 tion school, which is a Caribbean version ofdependency theory, has devdoped a conceptofplantationeconomy thatimplies continuityin the external, metropolissatdlite rdations, as well as in the internal aspects ofthe plantation economy. The internal rdations of production of plantation economies have dements...