Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future

The West Indies February 19, 2025

The Seventeenth Century saw the rise of the West Indies as the most important colonies of England.  They were the most important because they produced abundant crops of sugar and sugar was what greased the financial wheels for the entire colonial enterprise.  It afforded the profits and covered the losses to fuel a growing empire, and the navy needed to make it happen.

The islands of the West Indies had been ignored by the Spanish as too small to bother with and they were consequently claimed and settled first by pirates from the three later colonizing powers, England, France and Holland and then colonized by settlers eager to prosper in the New World.  With Barbados as their hub the English soon filled these islands with plantations.  In a short time, there were more colonists in the West Indies than in the Chesapeake and New England colonies combined which made sense since the financial rewards were also greater.

The same pattern was followed as in the Chesapeake Colonies.  At first most colonists came as indentured servants who once they were free sought to build their own holdings into sugar producing plantations.  Then when it proved economically profitable the planters began importing African slaves.  The Africans proved to be much better suited to the climate and able to survive much better than the indentured servants plus they never had to be freed.  The West Indies were the first English colonies to have a majority slave population.  This demographic fact is evident in the current population of the Islands.  The slave codes or laws as with the work and climate were particularly harsh all of which led to high mortality rates among the slaves and a consequently high rate of importation of more Africans to swell the constantly thinning workforce.

In contrast to the wretched existence of most of the population, which were slaves the apex of society was held by the great planters.  Growing sugar was an expensive proposition if it was going to pay.  In other words, it takes money to make money.  As time went on the land in the West Indies became more and more concentrated in the hands of a small minority of Great Planters who bought or muscled out the smaller ones.  These Great Planters became fabulously wealthy and lived in a grand style in opulent homes surrounded by the finest imports from Europe.

Besides sugar which was refined and processed into raw sugar, molasses and rum the West Indies also produced a highly sought after grade of tobacco.  All-in-all, the West Indies were without a doubt the jewel in the crown of English colonialism.