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The sugar revolution led to the region’s economy being dominated by the sugar plantations. Although,
there was some variation between a rural sector and an urban sector, and even within the rural sector
there were differences between the sugar sectors, pens and other agricultural units, the majority of
enslaved workers were attached to sugar plantations. As a result, the sugar sector will be used as the
basis for the discussion of the enslaved labour force.

The planter’s primary aim was to ensure the profitability of the plantation. To be efficacious in this area,
management of the enslaved labour force was vital. At the basis of the system of labour organization was
the fact that masters had property rights in their enslaved people. Hence, they were able to command a
labour input greater than they would have done in a free labour market. Enslaved labour was coerced
labour, thus, planters were able to maximize output.

Plantations were managed using a rigid hierarchy of control. Ultimately, the labourers were under the
control of their legal owners. However, if they were absent, attorneys or managers functioned in their
places. They, in turn, relied on overseers for a more direct supervision of the day to day running of the
estate. Near the bottom of the scale, but still in possession of some authority, were the drivers who were
often promoted enslaved people. They were responsible for the minute supervision of the enslaved people
while at work in their gangs. At the bottom of the structure were, of course, the enslaved masses that
were officially the property of their masters.

Planters directed the enslaved populated into groups that facilitated the planning and organization of work
and the supervision of the labour force. The groups actually served to match the perceived strength or
abilities of a particular person with the kind of tasks he or she was assigned. One of the most important
groups on any estate comprised the field enslaved people. The exact proportion of field enslaved people
in the total enslaved labour force tended to vary among plantations. Estimates vary from 35% to 59%.
Forty-five per cent can be used as an average. However, although the number of field enslaved people
varied, their organization did not. Field enslaved people were invariably divided into three categories, the
first gang or great gang, the second gang and the third gang.

The first gang usually consisted of the most valuable enslaved people on the estate and by extension
those in prime physical condition. This was usually the largest gang. These men and women did the
heaviest work on the plantation; they cleared the land, dug the cane holes, planted and cut the canes, and
fed them to the mills. The second gang generally consisted of adolescents, and young men and women
who were promoted from the third gang. It was in this gang that the enslaved people first really
experienced field work. They did work which was somewhat lighter yet similar to that done by the first
gang. Their tasks included the picking of grass to be used as fodder; caring for the cattle, mules, horses
and other small stock on the estates; planting provisions and sometimes sugarcane; and tending to the
upkeep of the plantations. The third gang comprised the children. From as early as the age of six or
seven, the discipline of gang work was enforced on the children’s psyche. They collected grass and other
food for the stock, did light weeding and carried water to the fields.

The characteristics of sex, age, colour, birthplace and health were used by planters in the management of
their human resources. Colour played an important role in the allocation of duties. A coloured enslaved
person (that is, of mixed race), especially if male, was more likely to be employed in skilled occupations.
The females were most likely to work as domestics in the manager’s or overseer’s house. Colour may
have been the most visible criterion used, but on close investigation and analysis, health and age stand
out as the basic principles used to organize the enslaved population and allocate jobs. Age combined with
good health meant that an enslaved person was almost certainly in a particular type of occupation. Thus,
healthy enslaved people at 15 were almost sure to be in the second gang; at 30 they were to be in the first
gang. Once over fifty, the enslaved people were likely to be employed as watchmen or in some other
position where less strenuous labour was required.
When an enslaved person reached “old age”, in the context of the plantation, he or she was usually
regarded as superannuated. However, this only meant that the persons were removed from the more
strenuous activities on the estate with which, in any case, they could no longer cope. It is clear that the
main concern in management was the economic value of the labour force. Thus, as long as enslaved
people were alive and were not absolutely useless, managers insisted that they continue to contribute to
the plantation’s upkeep in some manner, if only to help pay for their own maintenance. These jobs now
included planting and cleaning fences and hospital attendance. They could even be sold at nominal prices
to poor whites and free coloureds. The same logic was employed with respect to diseased and infirm
enslaved people. Again, the planters’ aim was to extract as much productive labour from them as
possible. They performed various relatively lighter tasks that were necessary to the plantation.

Another important distinction made in plantation management was that between creole and African
enslaved people. African enslaved people as the term implies were those who were born in Africa and then
transported to the Caribbean. Creole enslaved people were born in the Caribbean. The latter were of a
higher value than African enslaved people because they were considered to be less of a risk in terms of
acclimatization, more tractable and already versed in the labour requirements and acceptance of the
servitude. All enslaved persons who were recently imported into the colonies from Africa underwent a
process called seasoning which could last several months. The purpose of seasoning was to get new
enslaved people accustomed to their new environment and the work regime expected of them. This was a
very crucial period in plantation management. The mortality rate during this period was very high. Hilary
Beckles (1984) estimated that, generally, one expected 33% of new enslaved people to die within the first
three years on the islands. Those who survived, covertly and overtly, adopted a variety of strategies for
survival in the Caribbean.

On the majority of plantations, women accounted for the greater part of the field labourers.
Proportionately, therefore, more women worked in the fields than men. There may have been several
reasons for this. Beckles (1984) points out that sub-Saharan African woman were the primary agricultural
labourers. In addition, it seems likely that managers felt that most of the other tasks on their plantations
were more suited to men than women. Therefore, in most cases, the posts of skilled enslaved people,
watchmen, tending animals and other trades were reserved for men. As a result, women were clustered
into two types of occupations, domestic and field enslaved people. There was a definite limit to the
number of the former which any plantations could profitably maintain. Thus, the majority of women in
Caribbean slavery were naturally concentrated in the area of field labour. Finally, the greater proportion of
women in the field could simply have been a reflection of the fact that there were a greater proportion of
women than men in the labour force as a whole.

Ascertaining the latter point is a more difficult factor. Many writers have claimed that planters preferred to
import male rather than female Africans. However, analysis of a cross section of slave inventories is more
supportive of the conclusions that on some plantations men predominated, while on others there was a
female majority. In some cases, the sexes were equal. Further, even when one sex outnumbered the
other, the difference was by a relatively small margin. Added to the above factors, it is estimated by Barry
Higman (1984) that the price differential between male and female enslaved people was small. These
findings are not what one would expect if males were really so greatly preferred to female labourers. As
the labour force becomes increasingly Creole, there is also a tendency towards a balancing of the sexes.
However, even among Africans, one cannot discern the proportion of men expected.

Thus, while this writer accepts the viewpoint that at one stage in the evolution of the sugar industry,
particularly in the earlier days, when forests had to be cleared and “brawn” was considered essential, more
male than female enslaved people were actively purchased, this situation soon changed. This preference,
in most cases, became simply an ideal, but not one that was translated into reality when purchasing
enslaved people for estates. It was simply a question of availability more than anything else, and health
and age became more important variables than “gender”.

However, the pendulum shifted and in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there was a new
emphasis on purchasing women to encourage natural increase. In the years after 1807 and the abolition of
the British trans-atlantic trade in captured Africans, there was no legal importation of new Africans. As a
result, managers focused on increasing their female population as a means of maintaining their labour
force by natural means. Consequently, towards and after 1807 the percentage of female enslaved people
in populations tended to increase.

Apart from field enslaved people, there were generally two other groups of enslaved people on
plantations. Non-field workers, who had a per capita value well below that of the average man or woman
in the enslaved population, comprised the first group. This category usually included house workers,
watchmen, and nurses, among others. The other group consisted of non-field workers whose per capita
value was among the highest on the estates. The latter group usually included skilled enslaved people and
the heads of the various classifications of workers on estates.

In the first case, these persons were usually thought to be incapable of performing efficiently in more
strenuous areas of activity such as working in the field. This was usually because of age, infirmity or, in
some cases, because of their lighter colour. Ironically, because of the lack of physical strength or mobility
needed for these positions of responsibility, these occupations were accorded higher status on estates.

The second group comprised the elite of the enslaved population. Members of this group were among the
most valuable of the estate enslaved people. The elite of the plantation included craftsmen and skilled
workers, drivers of the great gangs, and the heads of most of the occupational groups on the plantation,
for example, head watchmen, and head carters. These men and women were the most important
members of the enslaved community, as far as status which stemmed from job allocation which allowed
some social differentiation. Even more importantly, they played a pivotal role in the efficient management
of estates. They, in fact, have been described as essential for the effective control and the efficient
management of enslaved people. These enslaved people, who for all intents and purposes can be said to
have led the enslaved population, were given preferential treatment. This was the mechanism used by
planters to reinforce their status among the other members of the enslaved population and to reward them
for the important part they played in ensuring productivity and efficiency. These enslaved people,
therefore, were the recipients of numerous indulgences from planters or managers which singled them out
from the body of the enslaved population. These indulgences usually took the form of greater and better
food and clothing allowances. They also received special items, such as rum, shoes, hats or even money.

The skilled enslaved people on an estate usually included coopers, basket makers, carpenters, millmen,
potters, clarifiers, distillers, boilers, clayers and blacksmiths, all invariably men. These skilled enslaved
people came to be extremely expensive. Planters, by the late eighteenth century, had come to the
conclusion that it was too costly to buy enslaved people who were already skilled. Thus, the training of
skilled enslaved people became an important part of plantation management. Specially chosen boys, or in
the case of seamstresses, girls were apprenticed to skilled enslaved people to ensure that the plantations’
work could be carried out in the future without the purchase or hire of expensive skilled enslaved people.

The elite group was for the most part of mixed race, the exception being the driver. One of the most
important persons in the enslaved population was the head driver who was in charge of the great gang.
He directed the enslaved people as to the precise work each gang had to do. Drivers were usually selected
from the first gang after years of productivity. These enslaved people possessed characteristics of
leadership and responsibility. The driver of a third gang tended to be a woman. She was also usually a
domestic as opposed to an enslaved field worker. Women were also sometimes head of the second gang.
We have seen no examples of women who led the first gang. Thus, planters seemed to have used women
primarily to head gangs which contained the children. The women were, therefore, important in the
training of young enslaved people, and familiarizing them with enslaved society, while still providing young
children with a measure of mothering and nursing. Gender norms clearly affected the planters’ choice of
drivers. The pattern of exploiting productive as well as reproductive and associated facets of female
labourers was to be repeated in many aspects of plantation life. No where is this more apparent than in
the area of natural increase.

In the early days of enslavement, planters displayed disinterest towards children, family life and natural
increase. They were convinced that, in view of the large profits they received from sugar cultivation and
the relative cheapness of enslaved people, it was more economical to buy enslaved people than to try to
reproduce them naturally. Local reproduction was regarded as simply a loss of valuable labour time. Thus
pre- and post- natal care for pregnant women, as well as infant care, was not part of management’s
policies. Planters were not adverse to the use of child labour, and in fact, as discussed earlier, child labour
was an integral part of the production process. However, making the most of productive use of the
children who survived was quite different from an active policy of purchasing, breeding and rearing
children.

In the case of purchasing, there were much lower proportions of children available for sale. Klein (1978)
puts the figure at 10% of all transported enslaved people. In any event, planters were unlikely to purchase
children and this is supported by their lower prices, which further induced slave captains that they were
poor investments compared to adults. The planters’ decisions were not illogical. A mature African on
purchase could enter the first gang within one to three years if he or she survived. There was a much
longer wait for a child to attain the stage of maximum productivity and over this period there was a very
high mortality risk. The same logic can be applied to natural increase. The child would have to be
maintained for years and the chances of survival were even more dismal. However, two developments
forced planters throughout the region to adjust their policies. The first was the increasing cost of enslaved
people; the second was the impending abolition of the trans-atlantic trade in captured Africans. Thus, once
the environment for access to enslaved people started to change culminating in abolition, planters were
forced to adjust their policies.

The first phase of this process was influenced by depleting resources and the increasing cost of enslaved
people. During the period 1673 to 1807, the cost of an enslaved person increased from under £20(s) to
£70(s). Prices would increase even further after 1807. The increased cost of their most important input
must have caused planters to review their policies for the maintenance of their labour forces. For planters
and colonies with increasing economic problems, it became even more imperative to make changes. By
the end of the eighteenth century, when it was becoming increasing apparent that the largest trans-
atlantic trade in captured Africans, that of Britain, would be abolished, all planters had to sit up and take
notice. This new outlook had implications for the entire enslaved population, but particularly for women
and children and by extension, family life. Natural increase now became pivotal to the future of
plantations.

Estate inventories clearly reflect an increase in the proportions of females in the enslaved populations of
the Caribbean. Planters actively purchased women who were now valued not merely for their productive
but also their reproductive capacities. Planters also adjusted their treatment of women and children.
Emphasis was placed on pre- and post- natal care. Inducements were offered to women who bore children
and close attention was paid to the food, clothing and general care which infants received. However, most
Caribbean colonies did not achieve natural increases in their enslaved populations until after
emancipation; this is in contrast to the enslaved population of the United States.

A major problem was the high mortality levels on plantations. Sugar plantations were notorious for
morbidity and mortality. Historians like Richard Sheridan (1974) and Barry Higman (1984), for example,
have published informative works on the mortality environment on sugar estates. The plantations
themselves were health hazards. The large numbers of imported workers from different environments, the
poor state of medical knowledge, the intense regime, the poor nutrition, the excessive punishments, and
the unhygienic environment must have all contributed to the high rates of mortality. Diseases were an
everyday part of life: - fevers, the flux, measles, small pox, yaws, sexual diseases, worms, locked jaw or
tetanus- were all common. Adding to the death toll were accidents, suicides and abortions. Deaths,
however, tended to be concentrated in two areas: newly imported Africans and infants born in the
Caribbean. The rate of mortality of the former is estimated at one in three, while the latter is estimated
even higher at one in two. These two concentrations of death directly impacted on planters’ attempts to
increase their labour force.

Exacerbating the problem even further were the planters themselves. Planters often blamed African
cultural practices, the lack of morality among enslaved women, and even a lack of parenting skill and
ability on the part of the women. Thus, the planters’ biased perception of their enslaved people and the
limited value placed on their “human” status must have obscured their assessment of the full parameters
of the problem. The agency on the part of the women and the role of contraception and abortions were
never given sufficient focus. Further, even with the change of policy in the second half of the eighteenth
century, women remained primarily units of the labour force, and, as such, their role as “mothers” was
seen as secondary, to be fostered and encouraged, but within the superior demands of the sugar industry.
Not surprisingly, therefore, although, there were variations in the rate of success, natural increases among
Caribbean enslaved populations proved to be generally unattainable. Among the British-coloized
territories, only Barbados and the Bahamas achieved actual increases among their populations before
emancipation.

Such a conclusion does not augur well for family life within enslavement. However, recent studies have
provided interesting new dimensions to the study of family life. Enslavement was generally thought to
have broken up families and retarded the quality of family life. In the instances where families did survive,
these units have been described as matrifocal because of the centrality of the mother figure and the
relative absence of the male. More recent studies suggest that the above depiction was not as common as
has been suggested and there was more variation in the formation of family units. Higman (1978) has
provided evidence of larger numbers of nuclear families in Jamaica and Trinidad than traditional sources
have led us to expect. In fact, he describes the nuclear family as the model type in these colonies in the
period just before emancipation. Craton (1997) produces similar findings for the Bahamas.

Clearly much more work has to be done on the prevalence of the nuclear family and the implications. The
factors fostering and retarding the development of different family units also need investigation. However,
recent findings point to a wider variation among family units as well as more dynamic and influential family
arrangements than previously supposed. Enslavement did not destroy family and kinship ties in the
Caribbean. On the contrary, the family was one of the strategies used by enslaved peoples to survive.