Jamaican trade, 1688-1769: A quantitative study

This dissertation demonstrates how a diversified economy grew up in Jamaica in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while providing a quantitative solution to the debate over the applicability of monoculture theory to Jamaica. It also provides a quantitative analysis of selected items from the export and import lists over a wide range of products and of shipping activity.;From 1688 to the mid-eighteenth century, economic diversity mainly occurred in the agricultural sector, as planters constantly raised and exported different crops while sugarcane remained the leading crop. During this phase the diversification of economy was basically agricultural. In the manufacturing sector, sugar making was dominant, and the growth of sugar refining stimulated the opening of more land for sugarcane cultivation. Because minor crops also relied on land, the pressure to open more land was a potential source of conflict between sugar planters and minor crop raisers. However, because of its plentiful land resources, the production of sugar and minor crops in Jamaica could coexist.;Beginning from the mid-eighteenth century, the rum distilling industry became increasingly important in the diversification of the Jamaican economy, along with the continued cultivation of different minor crops. The rum industry required the further processing of molasses, a by-product of sugar making. Because the yield of molasses in sugar making was plentiful, the rum industry could grow without pushing the sugar planters to open new land for more sugar production to obtain more molasses.;More important, the rum industry was a development from within the sugar making sector and clearly showed that from the middle of the eighteenth century the sugar planters began to broaden their economic interests, turning from more intensive use of land to more intensive use of molasses as a raw material. This is the most profound change that happened in the sugar sector of the Jamaican economy. When a sugar planter went into rum manufacture, his attitude toward available resources changed greatly: land was no longer his major resource. Consequently, the rise of the rum industry and continued production of various minor crops combined to blunt the drive to a sugar monoculture that might have led to the exhaustion of land resources.;The degree of diversification in the later phase is much greater than in the earlier phase: techniques became more sophisticated, management more complex, and the economic focus broader. In addition to the growth of the rum industry, the later phase of diversification also saw the development of some other new products and a great increase in production of some older non-sugar products. On the other hand, an increasing number of ships and seamen coming into Jamaica from the mid-century must have needed more ship repair and have supported an expanded service sector in the island.;Clearly, economic diversification moved from the agricultural sector into the manufacturing sector. This development from a lower to a higher level of economic diversification indicates that Jamaican plantation society never changed its character as a diversified economy, although sugar production always played a very important role.