Overview

Overview

This fictitious sales ad for a sugar plantation and protest letter are based on historical evidence about West Indies plantations and Quakers in America during the 1600's. Sugar plantations in the West Indies produced enormous wealth and stimulated Europe's economies, although they succeeded largely because of slavery. Little consideration, if any, was given to the possibility of farming the plantations with indentured servants or wage earners because slavery was possible and it was more profitable. Although some groups, such as the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as the Quakers), protested slavery, the practice spread throughout the Americas. It was not until the 1800's that slavery ended in the United States and most other areas of the Western Hemisphere.