Swords, Slaves and Sugar.

One factor leading to the industrial revolution in Britain was the wealth created by the sugar industry of the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries. That industry was later replaced by more profitable sugar plantations elsewhere but remains of sugar estates and mills can still be seen on islands all over the Caribbean. In 1988 Neil and Ann Wright and the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society surveyed Hamilton's Mill on the island of Nevis. That estate had been owned by the Hamilton family from Scotland, and Alexander Hamilton, one of the founders of the United States, was born on Nevis in 1757.

Lithographic plate from 1836 showing harvesting of sugarcane in a Trinidad sugar plantation. Just a few years earlier, slavery had been abolished in the British Empire.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia images

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Host or Publisher Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology (SLHA)