Rowntree's Caribbean Plantations

“Our idea is to bring English energy and scientific knowledge to bear upon tropical culture."

John Wilhelm Rowntree, Managing Director of Rowntree & Co. Ltd., 1899.

In the late 1890s, Rowntree and Co. acquired several plantations on the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Dominica, which were then part of the British Empire.

Many of these were former slave plantations, and the company adapted sugar mills and other infrastructure on the estates to cultivate cocoa, limes, bananas, coffee, and coconuts.

In 1904, over 300 black labourers and 100 East Indian labourers in total worked on the Caribbean plantations, overseen by 9 white managers. By the outbreak of the First World War, Rowntree’s Jamaican estates were the largest exporters of cocoa on the island, shipping exclusively to the United Kingdom. However, the company faced significant challenges in its Caribbean operations and had withdrawn from all estates by the early 1930s.

Why did Rowntree & Co. decide to acquire its own plantations in the Caribbean? What was life like for those who lived and worked on the land? What led the company to decide to sell up? And how can we understand Rowntree & Co’s activities in the region in the broader context of colonial exploitation?

Join us for a fascinating exploration of an untold global history of the Rowntree Company, based on new archival research. This event will include a video lecture from Laura Strachan as well as a discussion and Q&A from The Rowntree Society staff and Trustees.

Image: From originals held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York.

Host or Publisher The Rowntree Society