The Sugar Colonies of the Old Empire:Profit or Loss for Great Britain?

Abstract

N a recent article in this Journal, R. B. Sheridan maintains that the British West Indies made a substantial contribution to the economic development of Great Britain before the end of the eighteenth century.2A careful examination of the evidence presented by Sheridan does not support his contention. The object of this essay is to demonstrate that economic analysis used in conjunction with the data employed by Sheridan yields the conclusion that the possession of the British West Indies actually had the effect of retarding the growth of Great Britain.3 In fact, the conclusion reached in this essay is that the income of Englishmen would have been at least J500,ooo higher in the absence of the West Indies from the empire. Sheridan contends that the West Indies in general, andJamaica in particular, yielded an economic surplus which contributed in no small way to the growth of the metropolitan economy.4 This conclusion is based upon evidence showing the rapid extensive economic growth of the island ofJamaica between I 740 and 1 775, and upon an implicit balance sheet of empire based also upon data from Jamaica. In the course of his argument, Sheridan constructs an estimate of the wealth ofJamaica during the I 770's and expands it to include all the British West India sugar colonies. This wealth estimate was found by Sheridan to be consistent with a measurement of the annual income generated in the British West Indies. The sheer size of these findings seems to have led Sheridan to conclude that the British West Indies must have made a significant positive contribution to the economic growth of the metropolitan region.