The Origins and Development of the Atlantic Plantation Complex

I. Introduction: Mediterranean Beginnings

II. Elements of the Sugar Plantation

A. Sugar

B. Islands

C. Labor

III. Brazil: the First New World Plantation Colony

A. ‘Rediscovering’ Brazil

1. Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

B. Height of Brazil’s Plantation System

C. Decline of Sugar Production in Brazil

1. European Competition

2. Discovery of Gold

IV. Replicating the Brazilian Pattern

A. England and France

B. Social Structures in the Caribbean

V. Comparative Patterns in the Treatment of Slaves

VI. Slave Resistance in the Plantation Complex

A. Maroon Communities

B. Forms of “Everyday Resistance”

VII. Scope of the Slave Trade

VIII. Effect on the African States

A. General Patterns

B. Specific Examples: Asante and Oyo

IX. Conclusion: Reshaping the Atlantic

Key Terms

Cyprus

Azores and Canary Islands
Pedro Alvares Cabral

Treaty of Tordesillas

Saint Domingue

free people of color

maroon communities

manumission

Asante

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