Plantation economy

A plantation economy is an economy which is based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations. Plantation economies are usually dependent on outside forces, due to the fact that the products being harvested en masse are cash crops to be exported. Prominent plantation crops have included rubber, figs, rice, kapok and sisal.

Throughout history, countries with plantation economies have usually been in South America, the Caribbean, and Africa, and usually during the historical period of colonization, though Fordlândia is a 20th century example. Plantation economies are also historically associated with slavery, particularly in the United States. Plantation economies usually benefit the large countries to which they are exporting; they usually take the raw materials grown on the plantation and return manufactured goods, making a profit. Throughout most of history, the countries receiving the crops have usually been in Western Europe.

Tobacco plantations in Colonial Virginia
Tobacco production was labor intensive and required thousands of slaves to produce millions of pounds that were exported. The period covered by this article ranges from 1700 to the end of the American Civil War (1865).

The wealth and Influence of the so-called "tuckahoe" Virginia planters depended on one crop, and that crop was tobacco. The production of tobacco spread down the James, York, Rappahannock, and the Potomac rivers.

Tobacco and Virginia economy
Over the years tobacco contributed greatly to Virginia’s economy. In the year 1758 Virginia exported 70,000 hogsheads of tobacco. The production of tobacco in colonial times required much toil. The plants had to be grown from seeds in a cold frame, set out, weeded, tasseled, harvested, and cured. All of this work was done by man and beast. Each acre produced about 5,000 plants that required hand care over and over again. But, with slave labor, profits exceeded any other plant that could be grown.

Slave statistics
In the year 1860, one out of every four families in Virginia owned slaves. The figures cited here are from the 1860 census. There were over 100 plantation owners that owned over 100 slaves.


 * Number of slaves in the Lower South : 2,312,352 (47% of total population).
 * Number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208,758 (29% of total population).
 * Number of slaves in the Border States: 432,586 (13% of total population).

Less than one-third of all Southern families owned slaves at the peak of slavery prior to the Civil War. In Mississippi and South Carolina it approached one half. The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free Negroes). On a typical plantation (more than 20 slaves), the capital value of the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and implements.

Tobacco plantation owners
Many of the wealthy and influential men in Colonial Virginia were tobacco plantation owners. A number of America's first presidents owned slaves. They owned numerous plantations, each with large numbers of slaves.

George Washington
A planter’s wealth was measured by the number of slaves he owned, and George Washington was a wealthy man. Without adequate tobacco farming, George Washington's campaign against the English would have been under-financed. Tobacco planters found that slave labor produced the greatest tobacco profits. In Virginia, the black population increased from about 25% of the population in 1660 to more than 40% by 1760. Of the 277 slaves belonging to Washington in his own right or by marriage, 179 were 12 years old or older, eighteen of whom were "Passed labor." George Washington’s father (Poppa George) owned the Popes Creek plantation. Slaves sold for 30-35 pounds. When his father died in 1743 he owned 64 slaves who were distributed across several estates.

Thomas Jefferson
In 1776 Thomas Jefferson took a census of the slaves in his “family.” He documented, in his “Farm Book”, 117 slaves who lived on his plantation. He continued to acquire slaves at Monticello until the total was 140. Some were thought to be his own children. (3)

Robert “King” Carter
By the year 1700, Robert "King” Carter was the richest man in the Virginia colony. He owned nearly 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) scattered across the Northern Neck of Virginia. His tobacco plantations were tilled by about 1500 African slaves. The tobacco produced by “King” Carter was stored in his own warehouses, and he purchased tobacco from other planters as well. He owned the ships that transported the tobacco to Europe where family members profited from its sale. The same ships were also stocked with trading goods, and sailed down to Africa, where the goods were traded for slaves that were brought back to Virginia.

James Madison
President James Madison was also a slave holder all of his adult life. Slavery remained a moral dilemma for him. Financial difficulties late in life led Madison to sell some slaves and he decided against freeing his slaves upon his death in order to provide for his wife's later years.

Sugar plantations
The system of sugar plantations in the Caribbean islands and Brazil was a system that had to be followed to an exact science in order to profit from the production.

The slaves working the sugar plantation were caught in an unceasing rhythm of arduous labor year after year. Sugarcane is harvested about 18 months after planting and the plantations usually divided their land for efficiency. One plot was lying fallow, one plot was growing cane, and the final plot was being harvested. During the May-December rainy season, slaves planted, fertilized with animal dung, and weeded. From January to June, they harvested the cane by chopping the plants off close to the ground, stripping the leaves, then cutting them into shorter strips to be bundled off to be sent to the mill.

In the mill, the cane was crushed using a three roller mill. The juice from the crushing of the cane was then boiled or clarified until it crystallized into sugar. Some plantations also went a step further and distilled the molasses (the liquid left after the sugar is boiled or clarified) to make rum. The sugar was then shipped back to Europe, and for the slave laborer the routine started all over again.