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Sugar played a major role in the economy and in the lives of many people. Alberto Vierira traces the evolution of the sugar agriculture throughout Madeira and some of the Canary Islands in chapter 3 of his book: Tropical Babylons. Vierira discusses the difficulties of acquiring land and water in Madeira and the Canaries. Water was not much of a problem at first in Madeira, but it was very scarce in the Canaries. Water was eventually negotiated in the same way as land. Water should have been public property, but instead it was sold and rented. The production of sugar was beneficial to a large spectrum of the population. Shoemakers, carpenters, barbers, surgeons and others were able to take advantage of the production. The production of sugar expanded rapidly on the islands. It had even soared through periods of depression, but eventually began to decline during the 1500s. Although many offered explanations for the sugar crises as being based on external factors, Fernando Jasmins Pereira claimed that the crisis was caused by internal factors (Vierira, 48). Lack of fertilizers, soil exhaustion, and climate changes were all internal factors that affected the decline of sugar productions. On top of that, competition from other areas, the plague in 1562, and labor shortages further added to the bad situation (Vierira, 48).
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Madeira was promoting and developing the use of contracts of sharecropping (Vierira, 57). The use of slaves during this time often depended on the structure of landholding on the island. With so many fields and lands that needed cultivation, landowners began noticing a shortage in laborers. Vierira noted, “the active role of the Madeirans in the opening of the Atlantic world, and the proximity of Africa all played a role in shaping slavery” (57). Like Erin Wroe had mentioned, mass market for slaves began to emerge during this time in order to keep up with the demand for sugar. However, Vierira interestingly mentioned that although the number of owners with slaves increased during the seventeenth century, there had seemed to be no direct relationship between the numbers of production and the number of slaves (Vierira, 58). Owners with large numbers of slaves had very little sugar productions during that time.