carried on efficiently with plantations of two or three hundred acres,
and it required large numbers of unskilled laborers both to plant and
harvest the crop and to refine the sugar. The Dutch, then, brought sugar
cane to the West Indies. This gave them a new plantation crop, and it
also gave them a new outlet for the slave trade which, at that point in
history, they had come to dominate.

The development of the sugar cane economy in the West Indies produced a
basic social revolution. The small tobacco farmers did not have the
capital to develop the large sugar plantations. Some of them went into
other occupations, but most of them returned to Europe. The new labor
needs were filled by a gigantic increase in the importation of African
slaves. The ratio of whites to blacks within the islands changed markedly
within a matter of one or two decades. The white population consisted of
a handful of exceedingly wealthy plantation owners and another handful of
white plantation managers. Many of the slaves soon learned new skills
associated with sugar manufacturing, thus reducing the need for white
labor even further. The rising demand for slaves meant an expansion of
the slave trade, and, as West Indian slaves had a high mortality rate and
a low birthrate, this meant a continually thriving slave trade.

As the ratio between whites and blacks widened, the problem of
controlling the slaves grew more serious. Brute force was the only
answer. The European governments had tried to solve the problem by
requiring the plantation owners to hire a specified number of white
workers. However, many owners found it cheaper to pay the fine than to
comply with this regulation.

In 1667, the British Parliament passed a series of black codes intended
to control the slaves in the Caribbean colonies. Other colonial powers
followed their example. The law stated that a slave could not be away
from the plantation on a Sunday and that he was not permitted to carry
any weapons. It also specified that, if he were to strike a Christian, he
could be whipped. If he did it a second time, he could be branded on the
face. However, if a master, in the process of punishing a slave,
accidentally beat him to death, this master could not be fined or
imprisoned.

Because the Europeans did not view the islands as their home, there was
always a shortage of white women. One of the results of this was the
development of an ever-growing class of mulattoes. More an