Group Five (4)

THE PLANTATION SYSTEM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE CARIBBEAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE.

The Plantation System

The classic plantation was a politicoeconomic invention, a

colonial frontier institution, combining non-European slaves and European capital, technology, and managerial skill with territorial control of free or cheap subtropical lands in the mass, mono-crop production of agricultural commodities for European markets. The plantation system shaped Caribbean societies in certain uniform ways: (a) the growth of two social segments, both migrant, one enslaved and numerous, the other free and few in number; (b) settlement on large holdings, the choicest lands (mainly coastal alluvial plains and intermundane valleys) being preempted for plantation production; (c) local political orders excluding the numerically preponderant group from civil participation by force, law, and custom; and (d) a capitalist rationale of production, with the planter a businessman rather than a farmercolonist, even though the investment of capital in human stock and the code of social relations lent a somewhat non-capitalistic coloration to enterprise.

 Beginning about 1512 Spain undertook type 1

experiments in plantation production of sugar and other products in the Greater Antilles. Use of slave labor, also essential in types 3 and 4, was made practical by the plenitude of land relative to the number of freemen to work it. It early became clear that freemen in new colonies preferred agricultural self-employment to plantation labor; without legislative devices to bind them to the soil, plantation labor needs could not be filled. From the Conquest until the mid-nineteenth century, slavery provided the principal basis for such labor; it was not considered morally or politically inadvisable, and the slave trade itself was highly profitable.

 Type 3 plantations were launched in Jamaica by Britain

after 1655, in Martinique and Guadeloupe at about the same time by the French, and in French Saint-Domingue after 1697. By then the lucrativeness of plantations and the slave trade had stimulated other competitors: the Dutch and the Danes sought island colonies; the Swedes obtained a temporary foothold in tiny Saint-Barthelemy; the Knights of Malta briefly claimed parts of the Virgin Islands; even the Duchy of Courland made an abortive attempt to hold Tobago. Only after 1800by which time the Caribbean economic contribution to the growth of European capitalism had been immensedid this intense European interest wane.

Tenets of the Plantation System Theory (George Beckford)

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, slavery set

the stage for the evolution of a political and social system in the Caribbean that was structured principally along race and class lines. However, the racial and class considerations coincided so closely with each other that something closely approximating a caste system developed in early Caribbean history. In this system an exclusive white owner-planter class dominated over darker-skinned races or classeswith the mixed (Mulatto) population just below the whites, and the majority black population (both freed and slaves) occupying the lowest rungs of the racial formation. This was the plantation system, which the Caribbean scholar George Beckford (1972) claimed was a peculiar institution that totally controlled all of economic, political, and social life within it and throughout the region.

 The plantation system played a dominant role in the

economic, social, political and cultural life of the Caribbean. George Beckford (1972) saw the plantation system as a total economic institution , where the the internal and external dimensions of the plantation system dominate the countries economic, social and political structure and their relation with the rest of the world. Plantations have not only been a product of the metropolitan capital, but they have also produced monocrop cultivation for the markets.

 The plantation system was an all pervasive design, which

governed the lives of all members who were engaged in production. Horowitz (1971) sees a as a societal design that perpetuates a society dived into segments divided into segments: one large and unfree and another that is small and free, and which controls power in the society.

White Supremacy and Black Inferiority

Whites constituted the top of the social hierarchy , they were

considered the the Planter class, they delegated tasks to the blacks on large plantations. Blacks were the composites of the lower class thus owning little wealth, prestige and political power.
The whites dictated the status quo of the society, it was their

culture all blacks tried to assimilate to.

The life of the Black Man was one held with contempt, abhorrence

and repulsion.
The White Man enjoyed a life recognized as venerable and

admirable.

The Culture of the Whites

The Occupations of the Whites (Then)

The plantation owners Overseers Property owners

The Culture of the Blacks

 Almost everywhere slaves were systematically denied political rights, education, most religious instruction, opportunities to accumulate or to invest capital, and the rights to socialize or interbreed with their masters as equals. Hence plantation regions were markedly deficient in democratic political institutions, schools, churches, hospitals, stores, and the professionals, entrepreneurs, artisans, teachers, and service suppliers to staff them. A probable major contemporary consequence of the system is the persisting lack of strong community cohesion in plantation areas.

The Occupations of the Blacks (Then)

Skilled workers: Masons, blacksmiths,

carpenters.
Domestics Field workers

The Influence of the Plantation System on the Caribbean society and culture today

Retentions of the Plantation System present in the Caribbean Today

The prevalence of mono-crop cultivation. The marginalization of the Peasantry and focus on large

producers. Dependency on foreign investors to aid Caribbean development. Little control of the price at which crops are sold on the internal markets, since internal forces influence prices. Demand for foreign products at the expense of locally produced goods. Social stratification based on factors such as race and colour.

 The plantation system played the principal role in the

development of Caribbean culture. The islands were developed where the demand for foreign products dominated, and vast amounts of goods were brought in from abroad to satisfy the needs of the needs of the people. Even technology was imported and today we continue to see a high demand for many aspects of the foreign culture. Beckford (1972) notes that the twentieth century, long after emancipation, Caribbean society was still modelled along the lines of the plantation. Best (1968) comments on the lack of social integration and sees the populations, as a divided whole propelled from the plantation system ideologies.

References

Despres, Leo A. 1964 The Implications of Nationalist Politics in British Guiana for the Development of Cultural Theory. American Anthropologist New Series 66: 10511077.

Guerra y Snchez, Ramiro (1927) 1964 Sugar and Society in the Antilles: An Economic History of Cuban Agriculture. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. First published as Azcar y poblacin en las Antillas.
Jayawardena, Chandra 1962 Family Organisation in Plantations in British Guiana. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 3:4364.

Mintz, Sidney W. 1953a The Culture History of a Puerto-Rican Sugar Cane Plantation: 18761949. His-panic American Historical Review 33:224251.
Mustapha, 2009. Sociology for Caribbean students. pp 45 Jamaica: Ian Publishers

What have you learnt?

What are some the ways the plantation

society has influenced the Caribbean society and culture? Who is the main proponent of the Plantation Society Theory? Do you think Skin-bleaching is reminiscent of the plantation society? (opinion)