COMMENTARY

Discussant: Warren Dean

Department of History New York University

New York, New York 10003

I am struck by the uniqueness of the situations analyzed by Professors Greenfield, Lowenthal and Clarke, and Scarano. Each is important as a singu- lar case: Madeira was the point of origin of the New World sugar plantation sys- tem, Barbuda was the only place outside the United States where the slave population increased, and Puerto Rico the only slave system in which colonials petitioned the metropolis for abolition. Each of these papers represents a contri- bution toward the understanding of these historical curiosities.

Of Greenfield’s interpretation, that the motivating force behind the establish- ment of the plantation system was the desire for “social mobility,” i.e., ennoble- ment of the colonists, I would say that the motives of the backers of the colonial enterprise is generally more determinant. Their search for a high profit from a risky enterprise seemed to turn the colonists nearly always into predators and slavedrivers in the New World. It may be suggested that the first years of occupa- tion were marked by destructive exploitation of the forests for lumber (madezra), thus also bearing out the common phenomenon of environmental degradation followed by tight environmental management (irrigation).

Professors Lowenthal and Clarke must be congratulated for the demolition of a historical myth, the unravelling of which must have cost them considerable effort. It is worth noting that the problem is related to another of this con- ference’s themes-resistance, since it was principally the slaves’ refusal t o be transferred to the harsher island estates of the company that ensured their survi- val and relative prosperity. Indeed, they seem to have worked their own transfor- mation to a status approaching peasantry.

Mr. Scarano’s paper is also revisionist in the sense that it insists on the signif- icance of slaves to the Puerto Rican sugar economy, and notes that sugar occupied the best coastal lands and contributed significantly to Puerto Rico’s exports. His second point, that the transition to wage labor was not rapid and involved great inconvenience to the planters, is not as well established in this paper, but points the way for further research, since the historiographic implications of that thesis, if correct, are of great importance. I would suggest studies of slave prices, the slave market, and manumission and labor contracts.

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