Sugar Plantations

Definition

Large-scale farms in the New World, particularly in the Caribbean and Brazil during the 16th to 19th centuries, where sugar cane was grown and processed primarily for export.

Analogy

Think of a sugar plantation like a giant factory line but instead of producing cars or electronics, it's producing sugar. The raw material (sugar cane) comes in one end, gets processed (cut down, crushed to extract juice, boiled), and then out comes the finished product (sugar).

Related terms

Plantation Economy: An economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations.

Cash Crop: A crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower. In this case, sugar was the cash crop.

Colonialism: The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. This is what European powers did when they established these plantations in their colonies.