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meet their needs and eliminate an expensive import
The Sugar cane plant was the main crop produced on the numerous plantations throughout the Caribbean through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, as almost every island was covered with sugar plantations for refining the cane for its sweet properties. The main source of labor was African slaves. These plantations produced 80-90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe.
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Europeans came to explore, trade, spread Christianity, claim territory, hunt whales, set up plantations, and set up military bases.
what?
They set up large plantations with many slaves.
Plantations
The African slave trade was started by the Portuguese around the year 1530. A very small number of slaves were used to tend to the sugar plantations that were being set up in the Caribbean in areas such as Barbados, Jamaica and Cuba. The need for slaves was great because the Europeans had a very hard time getting the indigenous people of these areas to work, and because the pathogens the Europeans brought with them were detrimental to the indigenous people. The need for slaves greatly increased after the 1650's.
The Caribbean Sea
the loyalist set up cotton plantations in the bahamas:)
France