| Summary |
The island of Jamaica came to be known as the "crown jewel of the British Empire" because of its sugar riches. The most profitable New World cash crop, sugar was the bedrock of English settlement and agriculture throughout much of the West Indies. First established in a haphazard manner, sugar illustrated the freewheeling atmosphere throughout the Caribbean, as well as the advantages of scant political oversight in the region. Without the help of Dutch shippers, Englishmen could not have begun to plant sugar. Jamaican sugar, a direct outgrowth of the earlier settlement on Barbados, owed a debt of gratitude not only to Barbadian transplants, but also to the marauding buccaneers, who conquered Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655 with the express purpose of establishing an agricultural colony there. Jamaica's early years displayed a much clearer purpose than those of Barbados, as settlers there knew that they wanted to plant sugar. As sugar proliferated, however, citizens began to clamor for a more lawful society, and buccaneers fell into disfavor. Thus, while they were a crucial element of the birth of English Caribbean sugar, they ultimately fell victim to its success and the desire to protect it economically and politically. |
