Contract Labor, Sugar, and Technology in the Nineteenth Century

Throughout the world for most of the nineteenth century cane sugar was produced on plantations, most frequently with either slave labor or, after slavery was ended, with contract laborers brought in from other low-income countries. This paper details the diverse sources and recipients of nineteenth-century contract labor movements, relating them to political and economic factors. Shifts in the ethnic composition of the plantation labor force are indicated. Late nineteenth- century transitions in the nature of sugar production are noted, and questions raised about their implications for the study of the relations between institutional and technological changes.