The Sugar Barons

by Matthew Parker

The contemporary image of the West Indies as paradise islands conceals a turbulent, dramatic and shocking history. For 200 years after 1650, the West Indies witnessed one of the greatest power struggles of the age, as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar - a commodity so lucrative that it was known as white gold. This compelling book tells how the islands became by far most valuable and important colonies in the British Empire. How Barbados, scene of the sugar revolution that made the English a nation of voracious consumers, was transformed from a backward outpost into England's richest colony, powered by the human misery of tens of thousands of enslaved Africans. How this model of coercion and exploitation was exported around the region, producing huge wealth for a few, but creating a society poisoned by war, disease, cruelty and corruption. How Jamaican opulence reached its zenith, and its subsequent calamitous decline;

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, Politics, American History, Business, The Americas

446 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

I'm the author of a number of books including Monte Cassino, about the Western Allies' hardest battle against Germany in WWII, Panama Fever/Hell's Gorge, the epic story of the building of the Panama Canal, The Sugar Barons, about the rise and fall of the British West Indian sugar empire, Willoughbyland, the story of the forgotten English colony in Suriname, exchanged with the Dutch for New York and Goldeneye, about the influence of Jamaica on Ian Fleming's creation of James Bond. My new book is called One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the brink. It is a snapshot of one day - 29 September 1923 - when the British Empire reached what would turn out to be its maximum territorial extent. It was the sole global superpower, but it was also an empire beset with debts and doubts.

When not reading, writing or staring out of the window, I love making sushi, pubs, growing stuff and visiting remote places.

I'm a member of the Authors Cricket Club, and wrote a chapter of A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon. I am also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to Sweets.

I live in East London with my wife, three children and annoying dog.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not pleased to think that in the House of Lords, sitting making laws that affect the British people are the descendants of these sugar barons, slavers all. They made their money through the exploitation and total control over the lives and deaths of others. They purchased estates in Britain and fancy clothes and with their money married well. Some were rewarded by being elevated into the aristocracy, others bought their peerages by laying out funds to those who could propose them. And now, these people who caused untold death and misery to those whose names were never inscribed anywhere, being as they were possessions, farm animals like cattle, are now lauded as the highest social rank in the land.

______

Notes on reading the book. How can a man be much lauded for his charitable efforts in opening schools and hospitals (not for the slaves) and supporting churches (not for the slaves) and offering land and money to the poor to give them a good start (not for the slaves) and at the same time slash a slave's ear off, roast it and force him to eat it for punishment?

This is a very heavy read. The author has researched the sugar industry and families exhaustively and written a brilliant book. I recognise a lot of the names that survive as the titles of estates (not like public housing called estates in the UK!) and I'm familiar with most of the islands and with the complexities of the sugar industry.

At the same time I'm reading an equally heavy book on the economy of the Deep South being based on slaves rather than paper money, The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry which is giving me a new perspective on slaves.

These two books are opening my eyes to things I thought I knew but I barely had skimmed the surface of.

[Joshua Rigsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every wound the human race has inflicted upon itself: colonialism, slavery, rape, murder, torture, venereal disease, theft, war, sedition, genocide, binge drinking, binge eating, exorbitant wealth, violent poverty, forced self-cannibalism, piracy, sloth, deception, treason, and abuse of every conceivable color are found with suffocating thickness throughout the history of the West Indies.

After reading Parker's account, it's hard to believe that there was any place on earth worse than the Caribbean islands between 1500 and 1830.

When people were not suffering at the hands of other people, they were enduring the unfeeling, heartlessness of nature. The lifespan of the Carib native peoples was predictably short once the Europeans arrived, as the Old World diseases killed off those who survived the colonists' intentional attempts to work them to death. But the lifespan of the colonists was also unimaginably short too, as disease-loaded mosquitoes injected white after white with yellow fever, cholera, and malaria, which thrived in the swampy, unbearably hot climate, wreaking havoc on native and nonnative alike.

Only slightly more resilient to the diseases were the enslaved people brought in from Africa. These people were forced to work until they died of exhaustion.

The Caribbean islands were constantly squabbled over by the European powers. Any war between England, France, Spain and the Netherlands had repercussions in the islands, leading to sorties, raids and, often, the death of hundreds if not thousands. Both the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in the English civil war used the islands as pawns. Those soldiers who were spared by combat were killed by disease.

When humans and disease weren't killing off the population, hurricanes and earthquakes were. Every hundred years or so the islands would be leveled by massive acts of nature. People were trapped under rubble or buried to their heads in sand, the islands stank of rotting corpses for weeks.

Parker does a great job of conveying the cycles of violence and death that washed through the Caribbean with nauseous frequency. There is little to redeem them. Missionaries and social attitudes toward the enslaved people change with frustrating slowness. Inexplicably, conscientious writers convey the horrendousness of the slave trade, but can't find themselves able to condemn slavery as an institution for hundreds of years. It just made too much economic and biblical sense. They didn't have the imagination to conceive of any other way.

The book is well researched and written, and a must-read for anyone who, like myself, knows too little about the history of the area.

http://joshuarigsby.com

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a top-notch history of the English sugar industry. I have read much about the Spanish and French sugar industry in the Caribbean, but this is the first detailed book I have ready on the English trade. The tiny colonies of Barbados and Jamaica had a major impact on British politics from the 1600s through the 1850s. Every one of the major planters seems to have engaged in the Seven Deadly sins sometimes all on the same day.

It paints the British plantation owners as scoundrels, each worse than the other. Avarice was the driving force. The book details the heinous treatment of the black slaves. It also describes the links between the colony of Rhode Island and these islands. If you want to understand the politics of time whether it is England or the Caribbean, this is a book to read.

[Jean-Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picture it: a board game called DEBAUCHERY. You know, in which you can either get stinking rich, acquiring West Indies sugar plantations and building fantastic mansions along the way, or die of yellow fever or liver disease. Not to mention pirates, insects, heat, humidity, starvation, earthquakes, and hurricanes--lose a turn, or go back to start. Then there's slavery--whose idea was this board game again? But what if we just focus on the pirates--i.e. the 'fun' stuff--and call it CARIBBEAN? We just won't mention that slaves were often part of the loot. There is in fact a board game like that, but in reality the two subjects are almost impossible to separate.

The Sugar Barons explores this connection, among others, including piracy and slavery's ties to sugar and colonialism. It's a fascinating and well-written history of a region (largely the islands of Barbados, Jamaica, and Antigua), where the prevailing attitude seems to have been YOLO. Everbody has a name like a James Bond villain or 1980s prime time soap opera character (Drax, Beckford, Codrington) and they are each plagued by the above and more.

Successive generations face the English Civil War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of Jenkins' Ear, through to the French Revolution, and the never-ending political as well as personal intrigues make for riveting, if heart-wrenching (the chapters regarding slavery are especially brutal), reading material. And now it's time to reread Wide Sargasso Sea, or maybe A Small Place, both highly recommended. (Also excellent, by the way, is Parker's Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica.)

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential, immensely readable, history of the British West Indies and the North American colonies from the 1650s to the 1820s. After a slow start, this royal shitstorm of totally farked up people really takes off.

In the 1650s, one enterprising son of an Anglican minister, by the name of Drax, began sugar cane cultivation on Barbados using the Dutch model from the South American mainland. Barbados develops sugar plantations first, with nearby St. Kitts following. And then, in an effort to show some positive achievement to the English people after overthrowing the king, Oliver Cromwell decides to take over Spain’s territories in the New World. With little intelligence and rushed planning this slapdash plan goes about as well as Trump’s sudden and unilateral imposition of tariffs on the world.

In a nutshell, in “one of the most disastrous military expeditions in British history” the English ship more than 10,000 “soldiers” and sailors over from local farms, slums and prisons and see how far they can get on an island (first Hispaniola and then Jamaica) before they die of drunkenness, disease or malnutrition. A few of them are trained as soldiers. (I am reminded of Russia in Ukraine today.) More than half are dead within 10 months, including, in a nice bit of karma, Thomas Gage, the “renegade priest” who had urged the expedition on Cromwell to begin with. And what do the “soldiers” who survive this shitshow get at the end of the day? A small plot of land to work themselves, if they are lucky.

The “development” of sugar cultivation on each island proceeds like a game of Monopoly, with a small coterie of wealthy and ambitious men growing richer and richer and lording it over everyone else, snapping up the land of owners who succumb to disease or financial failure. A large underclass of landless whites develops and is used as a recruiting ground for “buccaneers” to assist with the war on Spain by looting Spanish ships and burning settlements. These eventually become the familiar pirates of the Caribbean that the British navy must work mightily to suppress 100 years later.

Starting with Barbados, the landowners come to realize that the poor indentured whites who have been shipped from Scotland, Ireland, and England are too “lazy” and unmotivated for the brutal and dangerous work of planting, harvesting and processing cane into pure sugar, and what’s more, they will not stop complaining about their “rights.” So, even though slavery has been outlawed or abandoned throughout civilized Europe, the landowners decide to imitate the Spanish (who had enslaved the natives in their New World) and buy Africans from the Dutch. Because, after all, they have to earn a profit, right? And slavery is just the means to that end. (I am sure they told themselves.) The British eventually nose the Dutch out of the slave trade, to which the American colonists end up being late comers.

For a few landowners, life at home on the plantation is an orgy of drinking (rum is made from sugar cane—it was called “Kill Devil”), gaming and using (again, literally) the slaves like their personal playthings. Venereal disease and sadistic violence towards the powerless slaves is rampant. What happens to the morals of upstanding English men who have just stepped off the boat from England? I guess it should not be surprising that in a tropical paradise where you have a 25% chance of dying of disease in the next two years, slaves who (understandably) revolt frequently outnumber you 10 to 1, and there is little culture or diversion apart from sugar operations, things could become a bit dicey, morally speaking. Especially when everyone around you seems to have no compunction at all.…

Governance: Each of the English islands of the West Indies, principally Barbados, St. Kitts and Jamaica, were republics, with a governor, appointed by England, and local legislative assemblies. English parliament sends over governors to try to manage the colonists, but the honest governors, who don’t play ball with the scofflaw local “tech bros” are attacked as “corrupt” and sent packing, which frees the rich locals to install themselves or their lackeys. These governors routinely take bribes, skim customs duties, ignore illegal trading, and generally give the wealthy whatever the hell they want, much like the Trump administration of today.

The North Americans colonists make a great deal of money selling foodstuffs, supplies and slaves to the Sugar Islands, and defy England’s rules on trading with the Spanish and the French during the wars, undercutting English trade in molasses, which leads to growing anger toward the ungrateful colonists in English parliament… To recoup the costs of the war against the French, part of which was to protect the colonies, parliament imposes additional tariffs on goods sold to the North Americans. The colonists take umbrage at this, and instead of realizing their error, the English double down by stationing troops in New England. Eventually, the Bostonians have enough.

Most of the book deals with (a) the slow erosion of morals experienced by newcomers, (b) specific individuals’ extremely bad behavior, (c) the sufferings of the slaves and the frequent revolts and suppressions, (d) the near constant and FUBARish fighting between Spain, England and France over one or another island, (e) the growth, demise and ultimate loss of wealth and power of a few families, (f) the connections between North American trade and the Sugar Islands, and (g) finally, the push to end and the outlawing of, slavery in the Sugar Islands.

All that mattered to any of the English on these islands, it seems, was money. How much could they make in how short a time before they were claimed by disease or vengeful slaves. But the system and the industry certainly made ambitious, determined, scheming, greedy, lucky men fabulously wealthy. Capitalism is good at doing this. But at what cost to everyone else, first and foremost the African slaves, but also the white underclass? And even the wealth that was brought back to England was for the most part wasted on pointless building projects, expensive art and furniture and seats in Parliament. The rest was generally, and some quite literally, pissed away.

Overall, a brilliant, awful, mesmerizing history, well told.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could never have thought I would find myself so engrossed in a history of sugar production in the British West Indies, ie. Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua etc. I could hardly put this book down. In the wrong hands this could have been an immensely dull and dry scholarly work, but Parker writes with real flair, populating his narrative with colourful figures, both sympathetic and abhorrent. Pirates, slaves, merchants, traders, plantation owners, politicians, rebels, soldiers and sailors, they're all here.

That said, this book is far more than just a history of sugar production - it is more of a history of colonialism in the West Indies from the mid-seventeenth century up to the abolition of slavery in the early nineteenth, and the creation of the 'first British Empire', founded on an immensely rich market in sugar and slaves. Parker pulls no punches, detailing the horrifying realities of life for a slave on a sugar plantation, contrasted with the life of almost unparalleled luxury and magnificence enjoyed by those select families whose fortunes were made, names such as Drax, Codrington and Beckford.

What I found particularly interesting was the relationship between the West Indies and the American colonies, a relationship I never thought much about, for all my interest in the American settlement. So much of the available land on the Caribbean islands was given over to sugar production that they relied heavily on the American colonies for almost all food and lumber, creating a heavy dependence that had a devastating impact in the wake of the American Revolution. Similarly, sugar, molasses and rum, and the British government attempts to regulate and profit from the trade thereof, played an important role in stiffening resentment and antagonism towards the 'mother country' and helped soften the ground for the seed that would become the American Revolution.

And all this from sugar? Who knew?

[Alistair · Rating 5 out of 5]

In south dorset past stonehenge i have often driven past a landed estate with a wall which seems to go on four miles and miles and the estate seems to belong to the Drax family . It has a suitable iron gate with lions or some such animal perched on the pillars . in Oxford there is a library set up by the will of Christopher Codrington at All Soul's College which contains a collection only secondary to the Bodleian . Fonthill Abbey was built by William Beckford in the 18th century after his father died supposedly the richest commoner in the land .
If you look on a map of the West Indies you will see tiny specks which are islands from which these men and their families made incomparable fortunes and became the richest men in England in the 17th and 18th centuries all from the trade in sugar .
This book tells the story of the trade in sugar in a factual but gripping manner . It tells of slavery , setbacks , early deaths , tropical disease , cruelty on an epic scale , wars between Britain France and Spain to expand their Empires , trade with the North American colonies centered around Newport , and the personal lives of the pioneers and traders who came to enjoy the power of Kings in Antigua , Jamaica , St Kitts and Barbados .
If you go to these islands today all that remains are a few picturesque sugar mills and the odd brick wall from the plantations .
The subtitle is " Family , Corruption, Empire and War " . This is enthralling and epic .

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed book about sugar in the west indies and how it became in 17-18th century a major cash crop also highlights the imperial tensions between rival colonies and countries

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An adequate history of the West Indies’ sugar plantations, their rise and fall, and their importance in gaining wealth for the overall British Empire as the central focus of the rum-sugar-slave trade. My only real problem with the book was that it was a very well-researched but strictly factual transmission of information. I do appreciate a historian’s voice occasionally making a wry interpretation. (We’re so spoiled with the plethora of great historians at the moment – it’s no longer good enough to examine a neglected topic in-depth, you have to be funny, too, like Simon Schama.)

In the 1680s, the British were making more money from the Barbados sugar plantations than from the entire North American colonies. The planters who did best were the ones who took their profits and made diversified investments back in England rather than in the West Indies. The economy was usually lucrative as one of the key destinations in the sugar/rum/slave trade, but the economy was at the mercy of tremendous forces such as massive weather patterns, earthquakes, diseases from the Americas, Europe and Africa, to say nothing of piracy and intense competition with the Spanish, Dutch and French both in the Caribbean and elsewhere at war with each other.

The islands needed constant reinforcements of provisions and soldiers. Fatalism, fast living, and callous treatment of others became the prevailing way of life due to the toiling lifestyle and high fatality rate. In London, the unhealthiest place in Britain, sickness was concentrated among the poor. In Barbados, however, one third of the British immigrants died within five years, and only one third of marriages had surviving children. Most families survived only a few generations, and even rich families easily slid into decline.

Planters didn’t want small scale farmers on the island, and there was no land left to give men who had completed their indentured servitude. This discouraged immigration from England, where birth rates also had fallen, providing more subsistence at home and less inclination to have a go at a land where the cards were clearly stacked against newcomers. The indentured servant class in the West Indies became hopeless, turning either docile and childlike or shiftless and alcoholic, as they responded to their meager food and shelter and hard labor. (These are qualities later ascribed to primarily to blacks as a justification for their continued slavery, although they are the most natural response to anyone in this kind of abject misery.) Indentured servitude had started with a contract for collaboration with the planter, but eventually the servants became more like property, and it was an easy step into chattel slavery once the slave trade began in earnest. The Africans were seen as superior in most ways to the white servants as they had better physical health, more inclination to work, more resistance to the noxious mix of diseases (particularly the African Yellow Fever which decimated Europeans and native Caribbeans alike) on the islands. Initially, the Africans’ intelligence and hard work enabled many of them to leapfrog over the poor whites and learn valuable trades, and occasionally earn their freedom. However, after some revolts the British understood how outnumbered they were by their slaves, sometimes 3:1.

The idea of race and of ‘blackness’ had existed for centuries, as it was particularly useful for Muslim slavers to construct black people as perfectly suited for slavery. However, there had not been a solid, workable concept of ‘whiteness’, meaning a master race native to Europe (the more northern the better). The term ‘white’ became defined at this time, as a concept useful for quickly delineating people who were meant to be servile at best, less than human at worst, but always only as good as their productivity for white people. This form of slavery was later exported to the Deep South, and this form of racism/social control has never disappeared from the culture of the United States, no matter how much it is talked about. Slave birth rates were very low due to poor health of the women, and if they happened to carry a child to term, the baby usually perished because the mother was sent back to work immediately. Slavery in the West Indies became much derided in the press at home, but the focus was always on the abhorrent conditions of slavery, not the very existence of it. Eventually, in the early 1800’s, once the Atlantic slave trade ended, sugar was produced more cheaply elsewhere and in more places, and wars with France and the U.S. kept disrupting trade (along with subsequent treaties de-monopolizing the sugar market), this entire way of life went into sharp decline. Barbados suffered from soil exhaustion, while Jamaica suffered from internal instability due to the constant threat of revolt, particularly from the Maroons, communities in the interior consisting of former slaves who escaped from the Spanish and joined with the remaining native Tainos. As the West Indies waned, India was on the rise, the newest and brightest jewel in Britain’s crown, and the British embarked on their East Indian enterprise armed with better management techniques learned in the West Indies.

[Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book that I would recommend to any fan of history. Parker like all great history writers is able to basically tell a story along with providing the hard facts and dates. I was really amazed to see how involved Boston MA and Newport RI were in the slave trade at the time, slave money practically built Newport it seems! It was also interesting to see the role that sugar played in the American Revolution. Basically ultra rich planters from the Indies started sending all their men to English Parliament and the exports and taxes were skewed heavily in their favor, oftentimes to the detriment of the American colonies. One colonist at the time actually said something about taxation without representation, a phrase that would resonate in times to come. England really never got that whole "absentee landlords are bad" thing, did they?
Great read, solid four stars all day, will be checking out more from Matthew Parker without a doubt.

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Matthew Parker’s The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies is a fine narrative on the nature of British imperialism in the Caribbean and North America. This historical epoch, despite our mythology, had much less to do with religious tolerance and political liberty than it did with greed and exploitation. Some things never change.

[Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hideous origins of modernity are here on full display. Colonialism, chattel slavery, global capitalism and finance, industrial manufacturing, modern conceptions and divisions of race and class, the commodities we depend on, the contours of the so-called "Enlightenment" and English literature, the specific individuals and families who still rule us, the very existence of the British Empire/Commonwealth and the United States... all can be traced or at least connected to the British sugar trade in the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries. This book is as revolting as it is illuminating, a catalogue of virtually every manmade horror you've ever imagined and quite a few you probably haven't, all perpetuated by a class of men living in such parodic luxury and debauchery that most outsiders visiting the islands were at least as disgusted by their lifestyles as by their crimes against humanity. If there is a hell, every one of these "sugar barons" is burning there, and probably still suffering significantly less than their own victims on earth.

I occasionally took issue with Parker's framing of or language around certain aspects of the slave trade and its legacy, and he tends to go on a bit about military maneuvers and the minutiae of the lives of individual "planters" (as they're so coyly called) who are only really interesting to me insofar as they illustrate the workings of their class at large. Still, there are genuine revelations on almost every page, and the sheer vastness of the subject, the depth of Parker's research, and the codex-like way in which all of this seems to reveal and explain so much about the past and present alike still lead me to recommend it to pretty much anyone who wants to understand more fully the world we all live in.

[Yibbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. The whole book was an incredibly detailed look at the history of the Caribean Islands. In minute detail we learn about the settling, planting, and cultivating of the major islands owned by the British. It covers personal lives, political jocking, and military maneuvers of all the major sugar planters.
I was starting to get very interested in the trade conflicts that were starting to emerge between the Northern Colonies, the islands, and England. It was also interesting to read about George Washington's time in the islands.
It is also incredibly gruesome as it covers in intricate detail the horrors the slaves endured. It was overwhelming to just read about the brutality they faced.
I quit at just over two-thirds of the way through the book when the author included the detailed journal entries of one of the planters more debauched actions and the consequences.

[Justin Tapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War by Matthew Parker

This is an excellent and well-researched work on British colonization in the Caribbean from shortly after its discovery by Christopher Columbus to the mid-1800s. The author explores the growth of the sugar trade and draws from the recorded history and personal journals of those involved in the sugar trade or who traveled through the area. There were a few families whose power expanded over generations and who still have representatives in the British Parliament to this day. As a U.S. citizen, I found the history of gradual divergence between the Caribbean colonies and the mainland North American colonies to be fascinating. Slavery, namely the horrifying and peculiar ways that the institution of legalized chattel slavery warps a society and leaves lasting scars that last for centuries is a central theme of the book and the well-researched details make for uncomfortable reading (or listening).

I began reading the book to get an overview of Caribbean colonial history and this book provided, giving a focused view on Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The author explores the daily life and lasting legacies of complicated people like Sir James Drax in detail. The wars among the European powers, the spillover effects of the English Civil War, the economics of trade, and the tension between the autonomy of the colonies and their reliance on Britain for protection and support were all well-described. I took several pages of notes.

The symbiotic relationship between the rum makers in Rhode Island, a Puritan colony which disapproved of slavery, and the slave-holding sugar planters in the Caribbean was fascinating to me. I was also previously unaware that a teenage George Washington had visited Barbados; while some of his journaling of that time is lost, nowhere does he mention the slaves, who were 3/4 of the population. The mainland colonies traded with the French enemy colonies under a truce flag, skirting British regulation of trade and infuriating the British Caribbean colonies. In the years prior to the American Revolution, the mainland colonies were seen as the "ungrateful" benefactors of British protection at the cost of taxes paid primarily by the sugar-producing Caribbean colonies. When the British moved to put more taxes on the colonies, such as the Stamp Act, the mainland colonies famously united and rebelled, whereas the Caribbean colonies did not--even though they would end up providing 80 percent of the Stamp Act's revenue. The Caribbean people were initially divided on the question of revolution and imperialism but stuck with England as they were more dependent on trade and protection by the British military both from the ever-present Spanish and French forces as well as their giant slave population where revolts were a constant threat to the white masters. The Caribbean colonies were badly affected when trade was cut off with the North American colonies during the Revolutionary War. American privateers began plundering Caribbean ships and even launched land raids in the colonies.

While the British ended the slave trade decades before the United States, they perpetrated it for much longer than the United States existed. While the U.S. still wrestles with the aftermath of slavery, the British have simply avoided it; first, by seeing slavery largely disappear from the British mainland long before the institution was outlawed, and second by granting independence to their former colonies so that the aftermath no longer matters to the British people. Looking back, it is hard for a Western reader to look on the sheer depravity and barbaric cruelty inflicted on people in the name of profit and sometimes even Christianity not so very long ago. The efforts of William Wilberforce and other abolitionists are appreciated in the book, but one marvels at some of the great names of history (Sir Isaac Newtown, for example) who propogated the slave trade for so long and pushed so many myths about the quality of life for Caribbean slaves. Even once the slave trade was outlawed, the legacy of legalized racism and discrimination meant there existed few schools or institutions for the newly-liberated slaves to develop the human capital necessary to achieve prosperity, which had implications that will last far beyond present times.

I give this book five stars. I will follow it up with The Black Jacobins by C.L.R James and other works on Toussaint L'Overture and the histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The argument over the past and how we respond to it has been there for a long time - particularly the question of the wealth that derived from things like slavery and what relationship there is between the past and present. This book is particularly interesting because it deals with the wealth derived from Britain's sugar islands in the Carribbean. It's extraordinary how many of the families that made money from slave plantations are still living on the estates, in the mansions and, until recently sitting in the House of Lords legislating thanks to peerages their ancestors purchased with the wealth that came from their plantations. Let me be clear that the only true comparisons would be if the descendents of the likes of Rudolph Hoss (Google it if the name means nothing) were living in castles on the Rhine and sitting generation after by right in the upper house of the Budenstag.

In terms of barbarity the life of a slave on sugar estate was indescribably horrid, brutal and short. Such was the profits from sugar that the policy was to work slaves to death quickly and buy a new one. It was cheaper then allowing a broken slave to live, sufficient work could not be extracted to justify the cost of their food, all of which was imported because the profits from sugar so great and the damage to the soil so extreme that there was no land on the islands to grow food.

This is a first rate book which turns a dull sounding subject into revelatory tale of human misery enforced on people for the sake of vast wealth that transformed countries like the UK in ways that we are only beginning to realise and study.

[Ted Dettweiler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essential reading on the history of the Caribbean focusing mostly on Barbados and Jamaica. Not a pleasant read - it opened my eyes to much sordid history involving British colonization (this book only covers British sugar barons) and the exploitation and abuse of slaves and indentured labour that began starting in 1605 (Barbados). Gave me a good understanding to the ties between these islands and the American colonies and the various wars affecting the Caribbean and the Americas which involved the British, French, and Spanish and to a lesser extent, the Netherlands.

I should say that the writing is 4 star quality but my rating of the book at 3 stars is due to the fact that this history is not something that those involved would be proud. But it is history, bad as it is, so better to know it than to remain blissfully ignorant. I'll pass on the plantation tour, though.

[Helen Hanschell Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bridget Brereton Deputy Principal of the University of the West Indies, in a review of this book writes"the book belongs to an older tradition of writing West Indian histories, the tradition that was dominant up to the 1950s, before the “decolonisation” of Caribbean historiography. This older school had no doubt that the creators of Caribbean history were Europeans. These were the men (hardly ever women) who “founded her [England’s] colonies, fought her battles, covered the ocean with commerce, and spread our race over the planet to leave a mark upon it which time will not efface,” in the words of J.A. Froude, one of the main writers of this school. Froude wrote in the 1880s, but in a book published in 1951, W.L. Burn wrote that the real interest in studying the region’s past was as the scene of the “thoughts and activities of men, and especially of Englishmen, over three centuries.” And in his History of the British West Indies, published in 1954, Sir Alan Burns saw the history of the region as “mainly the story of the white conquerors and settlers, as the much larger Negro population, during the centuries of slavery, had little to do, save indirectly, with the shaping of events.” The story of the conquerors and settlers, Burns noted, was “one of brave deeds and romance, and, unfortunately, of abominable cruelty” — but good or bad, that was the story that counted.

So Matthew Parker’s ambitious book is old-fashioned in the sense that it deals with the settlement of the English colonies in the Caribbean, the wars and British military or naval campaigns, the misdeeds of the buccaneers and their fraternity, the politics of the white settlers, the building of fortunes by the sugar planters. All these are perfectly legitimate topics for historical enquiry, but none is likely to be chosen by most of today’s generation of Caribbean historians — perhaps to their and our loss. It’s old-fashioned too in being essentially narrative history. Of course, there’s some analysis, and some “pauses” in the narrative flow, but basically Parker aims to tell a series of interrelated stories as dramatically as possible. But since there’s been something of a “return” to narrative history in recent years, he may in fact be ahead rather than behind the trends here.'

[Tawallah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been an emotional experience. This well researched book chronicles the rise and fall of the West Indian planter. A small number of unremarkable men rose to prominence in the 15- 18th century. It looks at major family based in Barbados, Jamaica and eastern America. Each island has a less than stellar beginning, odds are against the planter. Only the resourceful succeed. With success, the ripple effect of slavery and its effect on both the planters and slaves is excellently related. The effect on the world is huge, and sets the stage for understanding oil moguls of today. But riches never last.

My only grouse with this book, is the scope presented is huge. There are numerous key military battles described here. So if military battles are outside your comfort zone, then it will get boring quickly. The author tends to use Old English often for authenticity, but not easy to read.

Despite my shame, anger, bewilderment, horror with the facts portrayed, I am going to get my own copy to slowly peruse again. It is quite a dense read but necessary for knowing the history of my island.

[Victoria JS · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the moment I saw this on the shelf at the bookstore I knew it would present a fantastic read. I wasn't disappointed. It serves to confirm what I have believed for some time - that the British Empire was built on greed, self-aggrandisement and the abuse, misery and suffering of others.
A fascinating history which I lent to a friend who promptly read within the week. Unputdownable.

[Candida · Rating 3 out of 5]

This gives a graphic history of slavery in the island territories of Great Britain. There was so much money involved in this industry and the far reaching consequences of the invention of refined sugar are outlined as well. It is an interesting book and even explains some of effects of the trade on the history of the American colonies.

[Best Pants · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book. Page after page of almost rote history. It delves deep into the lives of the Sugar Baron families, the West Indie slaves, and the small whites who made up the early settlers of the Caribbean. Parker details how sugar came to be a dominating factor in world politics for almost 200 years.

Every few chapters Parker transitions from the history of Sugar Baron families to the slave trade and how it had evolved over time. He outlines the methods of mistreatment, torture and execution of slaves with grueling specificity.

He spares no detail of how terrible life really could be in a burgeoning plantation economy. Small whites drowned themselves in rum, thousands died from disease, most people didn't live into their thirties; regardless of social or economic status. When half an army disappears within a month from disease, desertion, diarrhea and drink you've got a winning history.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great history of the frankly bloody and awful history of sugar production in the West Indies. It does focus mainly on the planters themselves and their politics and society. The slaves and the poor whites are frequently brought into the discussion and their suffering is described but this is not a detailed study of their situation. Parker focuses more on the political forces that drove the system and especially the way relations among Spain, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands affected the West Indies. Lots of good references.

[Leigh]

S0 much of American, British, and World History, for that matter, hinges upon what occurred in the West Indies during these years but for myself this history has always been told in more of a sideshow way to the subject matter I was looking at. It was very enlightening to focus in on the story in the Caribbean itself and see how the events there helped shape and were determined by events elsewhere.

[DANIEL LO · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye-opener.

I decided to read this book as the reviews said that nevertheless long, it was easy to read. I couldn't agree more. The book is full of details but dynamic and an easy read. It gives the impression the author has no problem in telling things as they are.

It totally opened my eyes on the sugar and slave trade and on the west Indies and their personalities.

Proper research work gone into it.
Amazed by it through out the book.

[Rennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad - some interesting tidbits would like to see the story from the side of a native of the West Indies. The slavery details were overdone and more real letters from people would have been interesting.

[sminismoni · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic of the book is a fascinating one, but it was told in a piecemeal, fragmented fashion. It could have been a fascinating narrative, instead it simply presented facts, one after the other. I ultimately gave up, which was disappointing because I really wanted to like this book.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars really. I enjoyed this fascinating book and learnt a lot.

[BookishStitcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This took me so long to read even for a non-fiction. I just didn't feel like it had cohesion.

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story far from sweet

England was just one more European power back in the 1500s and probably not a very grand one either. In the first decade of the 1600s, English ambassadors were sent to India to the vast Mughal Empire and were kept waiting for two years before the ruler agreed to see them. If you run your finger down the map of the USA keeping it right on the east coast beach, you will probably be covering the entire area controlled by the English in the 1640s when they first began to clear the dense forest on the island of Barbados, at 166 square miles, only 20% the size of Essex County here in Massachusetts, one of the smaller American states. If you read THE SUGAR BARONS, you will read a most fascinating story—albeit horrible and sad in turns—of how the English turned this tiny island into a slave-run sugar plantation where sugar production on a large scale was developed, where sugar exports turned a small class of planters into the Gates’, Musks, and Buffets of the day. While the white settlers rode a boom, the Indian inhabitants were soon wiped out and hundreds of thousands of African slaves were imported and used up mercilessly. The British also had to fend off the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish in a couple centuries’ worth of intermittent warfare in which, if not Barbados, most other islands in the Caribbean constantly changed hands. They also had to contend with devastating hurricanes and powerful diseases that killed a great percent of all who came from Europe. Very few managed to survive long but those who did earned vast amounts of money. As life and fortunes appeared evanescent, many dissipated themselves in overeating, drunkenness and debauchery. You will read a lot about this here. Though when slavery finally ended, the planter culture also disappeared, it had been on the wane for long, due to all the wars and disease.

In their wish to protect their interests and to expand them, the British expended thousands of soldiers, settlers, and vast treasures. At first limited to St. Kitts and Antigua, while other powers controlled the many other islands, by 1797 the British wound up with lion’s share of all the smaller islands from Jamaica to Trinidad in the constant battles that bloodied that area of the world. Barbados and then Jamaica faced constant threats from the enslaved Africans who did not submit to their fate easily, suffering terrible conditions and punishments for 150 years. Because sugar prices decreased steadily through the 18th century due to a larger supply and sugar production increasing elsewhere in the world, the planting class, denied slaves, disappeared in the 19th. (Another blow to the sugar barons was the development of beet sugar in Europe). You will read of the treatment of slaves, the slave trade itself, the grand houses, and the fortunes brought to England for a class of West Indian “nabobs” as opposed to those from British-ruled India, who came a century later. Slavery and that single-minded drive for riches produced societies that were bound to fail. And ultimately they did. The West Indian societies of today no doubt have roots in that dark age, but are very different if not so full of riches.

The most interesting part of this book, and the main reason I’ve given it five stars is that it put American history in an entirely new light for me. I saw for the first time that the North American colonies, which were the be-all and end-all of our youthful history books, were a sideshow! Britain profited magnificently from the West Indian islands and the work of the sugar barons. We knew about the American trade with the islands, but for our textbooks it was only a small, even-insignificant part of the story. No, actually, colonies like Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Virginia were the insignificant ones. The trade was important for both sides and Britain, but America was the weak partner in the three-way trade. Britain fought all those wars to preserve their rule in the Caribbean. The American colonies scarcely gave them pause till very late. The vast fortunes of Barbados and Jamaica funded Britain and when the islands became overcrowded and fortunes hard to build, many a Barbadian planter and family set sail for the distant American states, especially South Carolina, where they built a new slave-based society like the one they’d left. If New England reflected the sober, religious, hard-working part of the English heritage, the English of the sugar baron society in the West Indies were a different lot.

I grew tired of too many Johns, Henrys, James’ and Williams in the multiple families whose history is described in this book (hardly the author’s fault!), but the story is well told and vastly interesting. If you like history, you shouldn’t miss this one.

[James CoeurdeFer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a sort of history-buff, this book caught my attention, I ordered it through my local book-shop. Bingo, what a treat! It is dense with information, at the same time entertaining, fascinating, shocking. Who would have thought that a few rather small islands had such an outsized impact on the British economy and indirectly world history? The sheer wealth generated by the sugar plantations was staggering.
There is an excellent BBC documentary on the same topic, where some of the estates in the Carribean and UK are visited, and the mansions in England are huge, just check out Harewood House of the Earl of Lascelle. This documentary complements the book in showing how much many cities and individuals profited from this blood-soaked business, Liverpool, Bristol, Aberdeen etc., not just London, how many fine houses in London were built with money from slave-trade for Jamaica and Barbados, extracted from the plantations. And the irony that the British taxpayer compensated the slave-owners (not the slaves!) through a government bond that was not repaid until 2015, when slavery was abolished. The ex-slaves had - to show their gratitude - work for several years for free on the plantations of their former owners. Charming.
The Carribean sugar business was also deeply intertwined with the economy of the North-American British Colonies and when the Crown tried to block the Colonists from doing business as they pleased in the Carribean inter alia also with the French Islands, this was one major factor triggering the American Revolution. My cynical reading is that money and greed of the Colonists was much more a factor than any political ideals and values driving the Revolution. Also, the book points out how much the slavery practices had inital influence on the plantation business in the American South, a topic worthwile exploring in more depth.
An interesting topic is the Barbados Slave Code, the earliest version dating from the 17th century. It is available online, a superb example how early the British Empire used the method of legalized lawlessness (an expression of Caroline Elkins) as tool of oppression and to secure the rule of the British Empire. The Code is neatly crafted in terms that resemble modern laws on fighting terrorism and creating sweeping powers for police, military etc., creating the semblance of rule of law and due process, but de facto giving the planters a free-hand to torture, execute etc. This legislative method was used throughout the British Empire, recommend Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence as further reading.
Other reviewers have already discussed the historical aspects of wars, pirates, diseases, debauchery, which make this book a very colorful read, engrossing, entertaining and proving again that reality is much more interesting than any movie script.
In sum, I recommend this book, it explains a historical aspect that has still implications today, I learned a lot, it is well written, dense, rich and elegant. Definitely a book for anyone interested in British history! Given that Mr. Drax is an MP in Westminster, it goes to show that history is far from dead, but very much alive and relevant.