Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico

Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico PDF Author: Luis A. Figueroa
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The contributions of the black population to the history and economic development of Puerto Rico have long been distorted and underplayed, Luis A. Figueroa contends. Focusing on the southeastern coastal region of Guayama, one of Puerto Rico's three leading centers of sugarcane agriculture, Figueroa examines the transition from slavery and slave labor to freedom and free labor after the 1873 abolition of slavery in colonial Puerto Rico. He corrects misconceptions about how ex-slaves went about building their lives and livelihoods after emancipation and debunks standing myths about race relations in Puerto Rico. Historians have assumed that after emancipation in Puerto Rico, as in other parts of the Caribbean and the U.S. South, former slaves acquired some land of their own and became subsistence farmers. Figueroa finds that in Puerto Rico, however, this was not an option because both capital and land available for sale to the Afro-Puerto Rican population were scarce. Paying particular attention to class, gender, and race, his account of how these libertos joined the labor market profoundly revises our understanding of the emancipation process and the evolution of the working class in Puerto Rico.

Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico

Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico PDF Author: Luis A. Figueroa
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The contributions of the black population to the history and economic development of Puerto Rico have long been distorted and underplayed, Luis A. Figueroa contends. Focusing on the southeastern coastal region of Guayama, one of Puerto Rico's three leading centers of sugarcane agriculture, Figueroa examines the transition from slavery and slave labor to freedom and free labor after the 1873 abolition of slavery in colonial Puerto Rico. He corrects misconceptions about how ex-slaves went about building their lives and livelihoods after emancipation and debunks standing myths about race relations in Puerto Rico. Historians have assumed that after emancipation in Puerto Rico, as in other parts of the Caribbean and the U.S. South, former slaves acquired some land of their own and became subsistence farmers. Figueroa finds that in Puerto Rico, however, this was not an option because both capital and land available for sale to the Afro-Puerto Rican population were scarce. Paying particular attention to class, gender, and race, his account of how these libertos joined the labor market profoundly revises our understanding of the emancipation process and the evolution of the working class in Puerto Rico.

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico PDF Author: Francisco Antonio Scarano
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico PDF Author: Francisco Antonio Scarano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description


Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico

Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico PDF Author: David M. Stark
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813063183
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Scholarship on slavery in the Caribbean frequently emphasizes sugar and tobacco production, but this unique work illustrates the importance of the region’s hato economy—a combination of livestock ranching, foodstuff cultivation, and timber harvesting—on the living patterns among slave communities. David Stark makes use of extensive Catholic parish records to provide a comprehensive examination of slavery in Puerto Rico and across the Spanish Caribbean. He reconstructs slave families to examine incidences of marriage, as well as birth and death rates. The result are never-before-analyzed details on how many enslaved Africans came to Puerto Rico, where they came from, and how their populations grew through natural increase. Stark convincingly argues that when animal husbandry drove much of the island’s economy, slavery was less harsh than in better-known plantation regimes geared toward crop cultivation. Slaves in the hato economy experienced more favorable conditions for family formation, relatively relaxed work regimes, higher fertility rates, and lower mortality rates.

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico PDF Author: Francisco Antonio Scarano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Plantations
Languages : en
Pages : 940

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Book Description


Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico PDF Author: Francisco Antonio Scarano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Plantations
Languages : en
Pages : 940

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Book Description


Facing Freedom

Facing Freedom PDF Author: Luis Antonio Figueroa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Enslaved persons
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description


Slave Revolts in Puerto Rico

Slave Revolts in Puerto Rico PDF Author: Guillermo A. Baralt
Publisher: Markus Wiener Pub
ISBN: 9781558764620
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
From the emergence of the first sugar plantations up until 1873, when slavery was abolished, the wealth amassed by many landowners in Puerto Rico derived mainly from the exploitation of slaves. But slavery generated its antithesis - disobedience, uprisings and flights. This book documents these expressions of collective resistance.

Sweetness and Power

Sweetness and Power PDF Author: Sidney W. Mintz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101666641
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A fascinating persuasive history of how sugar has shaped the world, from European colonies to our modern diets In this eye-opening study, Sidney Mintz shows how Europeans and Americans transformed sugar from a rare foreign luxury to a commonplace necessity of modern life, and how it changed the history of capitalism and industry. He discusses the production and consumption of sugar, and reveals how closely interwoven are sugar's origins as a "slave" crop grown in Europe's tropical colonies with is use first as an extravagant luxury for the aristocracy, then as a staple of the diet of the new industrial proletariat. Finally, he considers how sugar has altered work patterns, eating habits, and our diet in modern times. "Like sugar, Mintz is persuasive, and his detailed history is a real treat." -San Francisco Chronicle

Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment

Sugar Island Slavery in the Age of Enlightenment PDF Author: Arthur L. Stinchcombe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400822009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Plantations, especially sugar plantations, created slave societies and a racism persisting well into post-slavery periods: so runs a familiar argument that has been used to explain the sweep of Caribbean history. Here one of the most eminent scholars of modern social theory applies this assertion to a comparative study of most Caribbean islands from the time of the American Revolution to the Spanish American War. Arthur Stinchcombe uses insights from his own much admired Economic Sociology to show why sugar planters needed the help of repressive governments for recruiting disciplined labor. Demonstrating that island-to-island variations on this theme were a function of geography, local political economy, and relation to outside powers, he scrutinizes Caribbean slavery and Caribbean emancipation movements in a world-historical context. Throughout the book, Stinchcombe aims to develop a sociology of freedom that explains a number of complex phenomena, such as how liberty for some individuals may restrict the liberty of others. Thus, the autonomous governments of colonies often produced more oppressive conditions for slaves than did so-called arbitrary governments, which had the power to restrict the whims of the planters. Even after emancipation, freedom was not a clear-cut matter of achieving the ideals of the Enlightenment. Indeed, it was often a route to a social control more efficient than slavery, providing greater flexibility for the planter class and posing less risk of violent rebellion.