SUGAR PLANTATIONS AND YEOMAN FARMING IN NEW SOUTH WALES1

Abstract

Between 1865 and 1911 the sugar industry of the northeastern corner of New South Wales, Australia, was organized according to a variety of production systems: plantations, central mills and independent farms, small mills, and co-operatives. The authoritarianism of the plantations, based on gang labor, conflicted with the dominant desire to establish an equalitarian yeomanry in the region. Co-operation between yeoman and capitalist produced the central mill system, which is now universal, but petit bourgeois settlers of moderate capital attempted to maintain their independence by erecting mills of their own. Scottish Presbyterians were dominant in the latter group; their concentration on the lower Clarence resulted in a high density of mill power in the area, in contrast to the dispersion north of the Richmond where water transport was unavailable. The plantations were located in areas where it was possible to aggregate abandoned holdings and where population was sparse; the stability of the small farm pattern on the lower Clarence made it unnecessary for the capitalist millers actually to own land and employ field labor, but they did exert considerable control over the pattern of land use within their mill areas. Whereas the organization of the plantations created a nucleated settlement pattern, the other systems dispersed habitations and the small mills similarly dispersed processing activity.