Meet St Kitts: Sugarcane and our History

2009-02-09 20:06:16 by

As throughout much of the Caribbean, growing the crop of sugar and sugar plantations together shaped the island social and economic history. In the 1700's, sugar was the most important crop in the world. England, France, Spain, and Holland colonized the Caribbean, stripped the forests, and planted sugarcane on any island with land capable of producing the crop. Sugarcane was used to make sugar, molasses, and rum.

St. Kitts, the oldest and wealthiest of the English Caribbean colonies, has rich volcanic soil, temperate climate, and supportive rainfall. The colonizers imported African slaves and built enormously successful empires for absentee landholders. Around 1775, 68 sugar plantations were active on St. Kitts. By the 1900's, slavery had been abolished and Europe was growng its own crop of sugarcane, so the industry collapsed.

Today, St. Kitts is the only Leeward Island in the Caribbean that still grows sugarcane. It is expensive to grow, the lands are state-owned, and the crop processed in a government-run factory. As on other Caribbean islands, the old sugar mills - stone structures with a stack - are visible for miles, and have withstood hurricanes, vandalism, and the erosion of time.