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Isaias Ortiz introduces the statement from week 4 reading that: The slaves would find ways to cause chaos on the ship, so individuals responsible for the trade had to make sure that they had chains and weaponry to prevent “an actual outbreak of [slave] revolt” (Smallwood, 679). This makes me think of Sugar Islands in the way of preventing revolts in the sugar mills and plantations. If slaves were likely to start revolts in a place they could not escape (a ship), then would it be more likely for them to start a revolt in a place they may be able to escape from (a sugar plantation). Yet, Alberto Vieira does not address slave tension or revolt on the Sugar islands in detail. Vieira paints a picture that shows slaves, free men, and freed men working in sugar mills and plantations together. I find it incredibly interesting that no correlation between number of slaves impacts production in any way (Vieira, 58). This makes me think that a plantation could have a majority of free men, or a majority of slaves, and they will all work in the same way, with the same outcomes.
This article also interested me because it presented sugar plantations as a business that was not steady in the Madera or Canary islands. Not only was it unsteady for economic reasons, but also for internal political reasons. First, there were issues with water supply, turning water into a commodity that could be bought and sold. Disputes over land and water forced the crown to get involved because the Captains who were in charge of distributing land and water were not doing a good job. The saturated market for sugar production caused problems with supply. The Sugar Crisis made sugar production and sales unsteady in the islands. There was a short relief when the Dutch needed sugar for jams and preserves, but as Brazil reappeared in the sugar market the islands began to struggle again. Sugar was a commodity that many raced to produce, when plantations had to fight over buyers, sugar production began to decline out of necessity.
Tropical Babylons. Chapel Hill, US: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Accessed September 20, 2016. ProQuest ebrary.