Plantation (settlement or colony)

Plantation was an early method of colonization where settlers went in order to establish a permanent or semi-permanent colonial base, for example for planting tobacco or cotton. Such plantations were also frequently intended to promote Western culture and Christianity among nearby indigenous peoples, as can be seen in the early East-Coast plantations in America (such as that at Roanoke). Although the term "planter" to refer to a settler first appears as early as the 16th-century, the earliest true colonial plantation is usually agreed to be that of the Plantations of Ireland.

The term "plantation" was applied to the large farms that were the economical basis of many of the 17th-century American colonies. The peak of the plantation economy in the Caribbean was in the 18th century, especially for the sugar plantations that depended on slave labor. Most of that time Britain prospered as the top slaving nation in the Atlantic world. More than 2,500,000 slaves were transported to the Caribbean plantations between 1690 and 1807. Because slave life was so harsh on these plantations and slaves died without reproducing themselves, a constant supply of new slaves from Africa was required to maintain the plantation economy against this "natural decrease". In 1789 the French colony of Saint-Domingue, producer of 40 percent of the world's sugar, was the most valuable colony on earth. Slaves outnumbered whites and free people of color by at least eight to one, but provided nearly all of the manual labor, and essentially all of it on the plantations. Slave labor made sugar production profitable. Importing sugar to Great Britain resulted in a dramatic change in the eating habits of Britons, one of the greatest in human history. In 1700, Britons used an average of four pounds of sugar a year, but by 1800 they used an average of 16 pounds a year.

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