Struggles of a Sugar Society: Surveying Plantation-Era Montserrat, 1650–1850

Abstract

A major obstacle to understanding Montserrat’s sugar industry and the often-contentious social dynamics that accompanied it has been the absence of a comprehensive study of the small Caribbean island’s plantation-era cultural landscape. We employ a multi-scalar approach, combining archival research and archaeological survey data, to trace the island’s shifting socio-cultural composition and fluctuating sugar industry over the course of two centuries (ca. 1650–1850). Adopting an island-wide perspective on the interpretation of Montserrat’s plantation-era remains, we expand the breadth and depth of understandings about the island’s sugar society through comparative, multi-sited analyses. Our findings underscore the importance of extending Caribbean plantation studies beyond individual estates.