Plantation Coffee in Jamaica, 1790-1848

By Kathleen E.A. Monteith

Plantation Coffee in Jamaica, 1790–1848 is the first comprehensive history of the Jamaican coffee industry, covering a period of rapid expansion and decline. The primary objective is to examine the structure and performance of the industry and to demonstrate the extent to which it contributed to the diversity of the Jamaican economy and society in this period. All of this is examined within the context of a period characterized by significant structural shifts in the then emerging global economy.

As a work in economic history, the book is based on solid archival research and econometric analysis. Kathleen E.A. Monteith examines the changing levels of production, trade, productivity, and profitability of the industry and discusses the people involved in the industry, both free and enslaved. A demographic profile of the coffee planters and their familial relationships is established. The work experience of the enslaved men, women and children in the coffee industry, their organization, the nature of their works and their resistance to enslavement are also discussed. The clash of interests between the former enslaved people and coffee planters with respect to labour availability in the industry in the immediate post-slavery period are discussed also. Throughout the book, wherever possible, comparisons are made with other sectors of the Jamaican economy, especially with the sugar industry. Differences are explained in terms of environment, scale and the nature of production.

Plantation Coffee in Jamaica, 1790–1848 contributes fresh material and interrogates data in systematic ways not previously undertaken by scholars in this area. Strikingly original are the sections dealing with the backgrounds of the coffee planters, drawing on sources only recently available for exploitation, notably the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database, family history and genealogical websites, and the sections dealing with profitability. This book compares well with other works in Caribbean history published at this level of scholarship. It has no immediate rivals in its specific field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Release date: Dec 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9789766407285

Kathleen E.A. Monteith

Kathleen E.A. Monteith is Senior Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Her publications include Depression to Decolonization: Barlclays Bank (DCO) in the West Indies, 1926–1962; West Indian Business History: Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (co-edited with B.W. Higman); and Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture (co-edited with Glen Richards).

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A coffee picker, Jamaica. (Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.)

The University of the West Indies Press

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© 2019 by Kathleen E.A. Monteith

All rights reserved. Published 2019

A catalogue record of this book is available from the

National Library of Jamaica.

ISBN: 978-976-640-726-1 (paper)

978-976-640-727-8 (Kindle)

978-976-640-728-5 (ePub)

Front cover photograph: Radnor coffee plantation, Jamaica, St Thomas.

Courtesy of the National Library of Jamaica.

Cover and book design by Robert Harris (Email: [e-mail])

Set in Adobe Garamond Pro 11/14.5 x 24.

Supported by the CHASE Fund, Jamaica

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Printed in the United States of America

FOR

BARRY

CONTENTS

List of Figures

List of Plates

List of Tables

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Parish Distribution and Size of Properties

2. The Coffee Planters

3. Planting and Processing

4. Labour Management, Work Regimen and Resistance

5. Profitability and Decline

6. Emancipation and Labour

Conclusion: Jamaican Coffee in the Age of Global Transformation

APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Parish Distribution of Coffee-Producing Properties in Jamaica, 1799 and 1836

Appendix 2. Frequency Acreage of Coffee Properties, 1832

Appendix 3. Frequency Number of Enslaved Workers on Coffee Properties, 1818 and 1832

Appendix 4. Enslaved Females Assigned to Field Work on Maryland Plantation, St Andrew, 1818

Appendix 5. Abandoned Coffee Plantations, 1832–1848

Appendix 6. Coffee Plantations in Production in Jamaica, 1899

Notes

Bibliography

Index

FIGURES

Figure 0.1 Jamaican coffee exports (average tons), 1790–1980

Figure 0.2 Jamaican coffee production (average tons), 1981–2017

Figure 1.1 Parish distribution of coffee-producing properties, 1799

Figure 1.2 Parish distribution of coffee-producing properties, 1836

Figure 1.3 Frequency acreage of coffee properties, 1832

Figure 1.4 Frequency number of enslaved workers on coffee properties, 1818 and 1832

Figure 2.1 Ownership pattern of coffee properties in thirteen parishes, ca 1798

Figure 5.1 Jamaican coffee exports (tons), 1788–1850

Figure 5.2a Annual average British imports from the British West Indies and re-exports of coffee (tons), 1781–1785, 1791–1795 and 1801–1806 (inclusive)

Figure 5.2b British imports and re-exports of British West Indian coffee (tons), 1791–1795 and 1801–1806 (inclusive)

Figure 5.2c British imports, re-exports and retained imports of all coffee (tons), 1790–1808

Figure 5.3 Average amount of coffee (tons) remaining on hand on properties or at the wharf in Jamaica, 1790–1835

Figure 5.4 British West Indian coffee imports, re-exports and amounts retained for home consumption (tons) in the United Kingdom, 1814–1831

Figure 5.5 Coffee prices (£ per cwt), 1790–1850

Figure 5.6 Number of coffee plantations abandoned, by parish, 1832–1848

PLATES

Plate 1.1 Map of the island of Jamaica, divided into counties and parishes, 1794

Plate 1.2 Map of Jamaica showing parishes, 1814–1834

Plate 1.3 Plan of Arntully coffee plantation, St David (St Thomas), showing acreage planted in coffee, 1839

Plate 1.4 Plan of Silver Hill and Stepney Lodge coffee plantations, St Andrew, showing acreage planted in coffee, 1827

Plate 1.5 Section of plan of Arntully and Windsor coffee plantations, showing road to Morant Bay between Ness Castle and Moy Hall coffee plantations, St David (St Thomas), 1820

Plate 1.6 Plan showing intended road from Norbrook sugar estate to Rose Hill coffee plantation, St Andrew

Plate 1.7 Plan showing road connecting Trafalgar coffee plantation, St Andrew, with Bloxburgh coffee plantation, Port Royal (St Andrew)

Plate 1.8 Plan showing road from Kingston to Peter’s Rock and Mount Charles coffee plantation, St Andrew

Plate 3.1 Tools used for cultivating coffee

Plate 3.2 The Yallahs Valley area, St Thomas, showing soil erosion on the mountainside

Plate 3.3 Laborie’s ideal layout for a coffee plantation

Plate 3.4 Laborie’s ideal layout for a coffee plantation settlement, including coffee works (factory)

Plate 3.5 Layout of Moy Hall coffee plantation settlement, St Thomas

Plate 3.6 Details of a pulper or hand grater mill

Plate 3.7 Isometric drawing showing layout of coffee works (factory) on Oldbury plantation, Manchester, 1849

Plate 3.8 Remains of cisterns (basins) on Cold Spring, St Andrew

Plate 3.9 Remains of gutters on Cold Spring, St Andrew

Plate 3.10 Coffee works (factory), showing barbecues, at Middleton coffee plantation, St Andrew, ca 1907

Plate 3.11 Remains of barbecues on Cold Spring, St Andrew

Plate 3.12 Design of dwelling and coffee (store) house

Plate 3.13 Design of coffee store building

Plate 3.14 Isometric drawing of coffee store and mill house on Oldbury plantation, Manchester, 1849

Plate 3.15 Designs of peeling and winnowing mills

Plate 3.16 Design of a water-powered coffee mill

Plate 3.17 Remains of a water-powered coffee mill, Jamaica

Plate 3.18 Design of a cattle-powered mill

Plate 4.1 Plan showing coffee fields on Radnor plantation, St David (St Thomas), 1808

Plate 4.2 Plan showing location of New Battle coffee plantation in relation to Radnor coffee plantation, St David (St Thomas)

Plate 4.3 Coffee being spread on barbecues with shovels, Moy Hall coffee plantation, St Thomas

Plate 6.1 Plan of New Garden coffee plantation, St Andrew, showing subdivision into plots leased and sold, 1847

Plate 6.2 Plan showing subdivision of Mavis Bank coffee plantation, Port Royal (St Andrew), 1841 and 1842

Plate 6.3 Plan showing subdivision of David’s Hall and Industry coffee plantations, Port Royal (St Andrew)

TABLES

Table 2.1 Sample of coffee-producing properties in Jamaican Crop Accounts, 1790–1850

Table 2.2 Coffee planters (owners and attorneys) in Jamaica House of Assembly, 1772–1850

Table 4.1 Occupational classification of enslaved workers on Radnor coffee plantation, St David (St Thomas), January 1825

Table 4.2 Number of enslaved field workers, by age and gender, on Maryland coffee plantation, St Andrew, 1818

Table 4.3 Number of enslaved field workers, by gender, on Radnor coffee plantation, St David (St Thomas), 1825

Table 4.4 Enslaved tradesmen, by colour and age, on Maryland coffee plantation, St Andrew, 1818

Table 4.5 Weekly average number of assigned enslaved workers on Radnor coffee plantation, St David (St Thomas), November 1824–November 1825

Table 4.6 Reported runaway enslaved workers from Maryland coffee plantation, St Andrew, 1817–1820

Table 4.7 Enslaved persons belonging to coffee properties in Manchester and their sentences for involvement in the Sam Sharpe–led rebellion, 1831–1832

Table 5.1a Edwards’s estimates of expenses and return on capital (£s) of a coffee plantation, 1792

Table 5.1b Adjusted estimates of expenses and return on capital (£s) for an average-size coffee plantation

Table 5.1c Adjusted estimates of expenses and return on capital (£s) for a small-size coffee plantation

Table 5.2 Estimated annual average value of coffee produced (£ sterling) and return on capital (%), 1790–1810

Table 5.3 Coffee prices (£ per cwt), 1790–1835

Table 5.4 Statement for Charles Jopp’s properties in St Andrew, 1830–1846

Table 6.1 Number of freeholds measuring less than 10 acres and 10 to 19 acres in St Andrew, St George and Manchester, 1840– 1845

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is a detailed history of the Jamaican coffee industry, covering a period of rapid expansion and decline between 1790 and 1848. It builds upon the very important foundation laid by D.W. Rodriquez’s detailed overview of the industry, which was published as part of a series of bulletins by the government of Jamaica in 1961. That work chronicled the internal and external factors which accounted for the performance of the industry before discussing the efforts of the government to resuscitate it in the period after the Second World War.¹

The objective of this book is to demonstrate the extent to which the coffee industry contributed to the diversity of the Jamaican economy and society in this period. All of this is set within a broad framework of the developments within a period characterized by significant global transformation which influenced developments within the island’s social and economic fabric in this period. The book is a work of economic history which discusses the changing levels of production, trade, productivity and profitability of the industry. It also discusses the people involved in the industry, both free and enslaved, establishing, as far as the sources allow, a demographic profile of the coffee planters and their familial relationships. The work experience of the enslaved men, women and children in the coffee industry – their organization, the nature of their work, and their resistance to enslavement – are also discussed. The clash of interests between the former enslaved people and coffee planters with respect to labour availability on the plantations in the immediate post-slavery period is also discussed. Throughout the book, wherever possible, comparisons are made with other sectors of the Jamaican economy, notably the sugar industry. Differences are explained in terms of environment, scale and the nature of the crops themselves.

While the origin of this book is an MPhil thesis written for the University of the West Indies in 1992, it is not a replica of that work, nor are the chapters which formed the basis of subsequently published articles reproduced in the same way in this book.² Returning to some of the primary material and making greater use of nineteenth-century inventory listings for deceased planters, maps and plans of properties, and plantation journals, as well as recently pub lished work in Caribbean economic history, has afforded added depth of know ledge and analysis, especially of plantation work management and the organization of and resistance by enslaved workers on coffee plantations in this period. In addition, in recent years, previously less-accessible material has been made available through online databases. Of particular note are the extremely valuable and rich University College of London’s Legacies of British Slave-Ownership and the Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library. I am grateful to the organizers and managers of these two databases, as they have contributed immensely to immediate access to a wealth of information contained in wills, slave manumission records, property holdings and biographical and genealogical material, all of which have added tremendous value to this book.

Other organizations and individuals assisted with the research and completion of this book. The University of the West Indies, Mona campus, provided a sustained writing period through the granting of sabbatical leave during 2017–18. I am also grateful to the staff in the Special Collections Department of the National Library for their assistance and permission to reproduce copies of photographs and maps and plans of coffee-producing properties. Francis Salmon, the former head of Special Collections at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jessica Lewis, who succeeded her, and Bernadette Worrell-Johnson were all gracious in facilitating access and permission to reproduce much-needed material for this publication. The staff at the Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, were all very helpful in my research of the inventories and parish vestry minutes; I make special mention of Kimberly Blackwin. Christopher Graham and Karreene Morris provided research assistance. The helpful recommendations by the two reviewers of this work in manuscript form are greatly appreciated. I also thank the University of the West Indies Press, and particularly Joseph Powell, its general manager, for his interest in the work and his patience, and Shivaun Hearne, the editorial and production manager, for so ably overseeing the production process.

I am particularly grateful for the special encouragement from H.A. Hudson-Phillips (M.D.), who always enquired of my progress during the writing process. Former colleagues who are also close friends provided encouragement and support in a variety of ways throughout my academic career, and specifically with the writing of this book. Carl C. Campbell, Aleric J. Josephs, Jenny M. Jemmmott and Brian L. Moore provided encouragement and moral support. Swithin Wilmot was especially helpful with sharing his vast knowledge of Jamaica’s geographical and topographical terrain and assisted with my understanding of early-nineteenth-century parish boundaries and the correlation between old parishes and the modern-day ones. He was also generous with information regarding the formation of free villages, some of which were carved out of abandoned coffee properties in the immediate post-slavery period.

The genesis of this book is largely due to Barry Higman, who recommended research into this aspect of Jamaica’s economic history for my MPhil in 1987, having recognized very early, from his own extensive research into Jamaica’s plantation history, the potential for a substantive work on this industry, which for a long time had been overshadowed by the focus on the sugar industry in Caribbean historiography. He has been wonderfully kind and generous with his advice, sharing data and source material from his own work. For his encouragement and willingness to read the entire draft and useful recommendations, I am very grateful. The book is dedicated to him.

INTRODUCTION

TODAY COFFEE IS GROWN FOR EXPORT IN more than fifty countries across the globe, in Asia, Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The Americas alone account for nearly 70 per cent of the world’s total production, with Brazilian Coffee, at 2.5 million tons, responsible for approximately one-third of that production. Vietnam, with 1.6 million tons, is the second-largest producer, followed by Colombia with 810,000 tons, Indonesia with 660,000 tons, and Ethiopia with 384,000 tons. Jamaica’s production, 1,260 tons in 2016, is just a tiny fraction – 0.1 per cent – ranking it forty-sixth out of the top fifty Coffee-producing countries in the world. Though accounting for a small fraction of the world supply, Jamaican Coffee maintains a special place in the market, primarily because of its iconic Blue Mountain brand, first recognized in the 1880s, when it was assessed to be the finest coffee grown in the world. As a result of its very small supply and high demand on the international market, Jamaica’s Blue Mountain coffee is among the top ten most expensive coffees in the world, selling for around US$50 per pound.¹ However, in the early nineteenth century Jamaica’s coffee for a brief period dominated world production and supply before entering a period of decline. It is this period which is the focus of this book.

Coffee production had spread from the Middle East to western Europe by the early seventeenth century and was then incorporated into the transatlantic trading system. The Jamaican industry began after the introduction of saplings from Martinique in 1728, following its introduction to the region in the early eighteenth century.² For most of the eighteenth century, production remained fairly inconsequential; coffee was regarded as one of many minor staples produced on the island, overshadowed by the production and export of sugar and its derivatives, rum and molasses. The principal deterrents to its expansion for most of the eighteenth century were the high rates of excise duty on coffee entering the United Kingdom and competition from producers in Martinique and Suriname. In spite of this, the Jamaican authorities were convinced that with a reduction in the excise duty on coffee, the industry could become a flourishing one and encourage the establishment of a vibrant small-settler class of whites in the colony. With this in mind, they lobbied the British authorities to have the excise duty reduced. Their efforts were rewarded in 1735, when the British government reduced the duty from two shillings to one shilling and sixpence per pound. Although this decrease was substantial, the new rate was still regarded as being too high for producers in Jamaica to effectively compete with their international rivals. In fact, coffee exports from Jamaica actually declined between 1737 and 1746, from 42 tons (83,400 pounds) to 13 tons (25,000 pounds).³

In the 1760s market conditions improved somewhat, primarily as a result of increased demand on the European continent, particularly in the German states. By 1767 coffee exports from Jamaica averaged 19 tons (37,180 pounds) per year. However, exports fell to an annual average of 6 tons (12,980 pounds) between 1771 and 1775, mainly because of an increased excise tax that had been imposed to protect the East India tea trade in 1770. In addition, the favourable market conditions in the German states had dissipated when the states east of the Rhine imposed increased duties, thereby restricting the importation of the commodity. Meanwhile, effective competition from the Dutch Caribbean colonies of Suriname and Berbice and the French colonies of Saint-Domingue and Mauritius, made possible by lower production costs, allowed them to undersell British colonial coffee at significantly reduced prices.⁴

Market conditions improved substantially in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, which led to unprecedented growth in the Jamaican industry. A reduction in the excise duty to sixpence per pound in 1784 helped to stimulate significant increases in production and export to 1,350 tons (2.7 million pounds) by 1790. However, it was the massive revolt by the enslaved people in Saint-Domingue in 1791 and the ensuing protracted warfare in that French colony, leading to an almost total wipeout of coffee production there, which provided the Jamaican industry its greatest fillip. In 1790 Saint-Domingue, then the world’s leading coffee producer, exported some 38,500 tons (77 million pounds). The cutting off of this immense supply led to widespread scarcity, which immediately led to sharp increases in the price of coffee on the international market.⁵

Jamaica rapidly expanded production, becoming the leading coffee producer in the world by 1800. In that year its production and export surpassed that of the rest of the Caribbean. In 1812 it accounted for 52 per cent of total exports of coffee from the British Caribbean to Britain, while its closest rivals, Berbice and Demerara – effectively under British control since 1803 and formally ceded in 1814 – together accounted for 34 per cent. The Jamaican industry also rivalled production in the French Caribbean for a while during the early nineteenth century. In 1801 Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe together exported to the United States 19,000 tons (38 million pounds). By 1804, following the successful war of independence which resulted in the overthrow of French imperial rule, Saint-Domingue (now renamed Haiti), along with Martinique and Guadeloupe, exported some 23.5 million pounds. Jamaica’s exports to Britain alone in that year were 11,000 tons (22 million pounds), reaching its zenith with 17,000 tons (34 million pounds) exported in 1814.⁶

In the 1820s Jamaica’s exports began a downward trend, which continued into the 1840s. Exports from Haiti, though subject to fluctuations, by 1822 exceeded Jamaica’s. The average export of coffee from Haiti between 1822 and 1826 was 17,000 tons (34 million pounds), while Jamaica’s was 11,000 tons (22 million pounds). However, Brazilian coffee, which up to the early nineteenth century was produced only for domestic consumption, underwent a massive expansion in the 1820s. By the 1830s Brazil contributed 30 per cent of the world’s total production, becoming by the 1840s the world’s largest producer – a position it continues to hold to this day. Meanwhile, Jamaica’s exports had dwindled to just under 3,000 tons by the 1850s, a far cry from its premier position in the early nineteenth century.⁷

During the second half of the nineteenth century, slight increases in Jamaica’s exports were registered, most of which were attributable to the former enslaved workers who had established themselves as small peasant farmers in this period. By the 1890s coffee exports averaged just under 5,000 tons, the highest since 1848. Nevertheless, after 1900 further decline set in; the industry was beset by falling yields as a result of severe soil erosion, as well as being afflicted by disease. In spite of government efforts to resuscitate the industry in the post–Second World War period, exports reached an all-time low of just under 1,000 tons in the 1960s and 1970s.⁸

Figure 0.1. Jamaican coffee exports (average tons), 1790–1980

Source:Higman, Abstract of Caribbean Historical Statistics (Kingston: University of the West Indies, Department of History, 1985), table xiii/12.

Figure 0.2. Jamaica coffee production (average tons), 1981–2017

Source: Compiled from Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica Reports, 1985, 1990–2017.

Since the 1980s there has been a steady rebound in Jamaica’s coffee production, largely because of increased demand from the Japanese market. The most impressive levels since the late twentieth century have been those in the decade between 2001 and 2010, with sharp increases from 2,400 tons to 8,897 tons for 2004–5 and to 12,390 tons in 2005–6. While there was a shortfall in exports in 2005 – on account of destruction caused by severe inclement weather caused by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 – afterwards the industry registered an average of 10,731 tons of coffee produced between 2005 and 2011, with the highest amount being some 15,000 tons in 2007. Since 2010 there has been a slight decrease in production, due mainly to problems with disease such as the Coffee Leaf Rust, with average production yields amounting to 6,483 tons between 2011 and 2016.⁹

Jamaican coffee expanded and declined between 1790 and 1848, a period which has been dubbed the Age of Global Transformation. This is because the French Revolution and its political and economic reverberations within and outside the region, along with the ascendency of Britain as the leading industrial nation, initiated a structural transformation of the world commodities market. It was within this context of growing industrialization that there developed the questioning of the relevance and ideals of protectionism, leading to the promotion of free trade. This in turn spurred the abolition movement, resulting in the abolition of the British trade in enslaved Africans in 1807 and eventually slavery in 1834. At the same time, there was unparalleled global expansion in the production of both sugar and coffee during the first half of the nineteenth century, with the emergence of new production areas that in turn hastened the decline of old ones, resulting in shifts in the centres of production by the mid-nineteenth century.¹⁰

The rise of Britain as the leading industrial nation, with its powerful navy and its defeat of France in 1814, provided it with a monopoly over colonial produce and an ability to assert control and influence over continental European markets. As British industrialization advanced, there developed a diversification of the pattern of demand in the world economy, which led to an international network of supply which went beyond Britain’s old imperial boundaries. As a consequence, Britain became the principal core economy, exerting influence over a wide array of production and exchange in peripheral markets across the globe. Thus, during this period, industrial raw materials, fibres, minerals, grains, timber, fruit and meat began to replace sugar, coffee, tobacco, furs and naval stores as the key commodities in world trade. Indeed, by 1831 raw cotton had replaced sugar as Britain’s leading import.¹¹

British industrialization heavily influenced this restructuring. With industrialization came growing consumerism, and therefore a systematic pressure to lower the prices of consumer goods, including British colonial produce. However, the high price of British West Indian produce – because of higher production costs and the protective tariffs which underpinned them – risked dampening British domestic consumption and seriously weakening Britain’s position in the re-export market. Cheaper produce from outside the empire threatened colonial West Indian re-exports, which had to be subsidized in order to make them competitive. At the same time, British domestic consumption was growing, but the problem was that, as their competitive position in foreign markets weakened, the British West Indian colonies became more heavily dependent on the British domestic market and preferential duties. The higher costs of British West Indian produce and the need for continued protection from both foreign and British colonial East Indian produce threatened the growth of British consumption as well as British industry. Since British colonial East Indian sugar and coffee were based on free labour, there was mounting pressure – with the support of the antislavery movement – to equalize the duties on both British colonial West Indian and East Indian sugars and coffee entering the British home market.¹²

P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins have argued that, after 1815, the role of the empire was slowly adjusted to fit Britain’s changing priorities. They state that the reforms put in place occurred within a structure that was still based on colonial preferences, including those made in the 1820s. They argue that the protectionist policies in Europe and America after 1815 encouraged Britain to maintain its traditional policy and to take an interest in extending trade to underdeveloped areas that lay outside its formal control. This extension of informal influence after 1815 is best understood not as an alternative to the old colonial system, but as an addition to it, one which reflected the growing cosmopolitan character of British trade and finance and the growing ambivalence of its commercial policy during this period of transition to free trade.¹³

Nevertheless, the extent to which Britain came to control commerce outside the bounds of its own empire suggests a relative indifference to formal colonialism as a means of defining the nature and direction of commodity flows and the division of labour between the core and periphery; as such, it placed Britain on the path towards free trade. As noted by Dale W. Tomich, the result was a changed geographical pattern of world sugar and coffee production which saw the decline of old production centres and the emergence of new ones. In addition to Cuba, the Indonesian island of Java, India, Mauritius, Bourbon (present day Réunion), Louisiana, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Brazil emerged as the world’s leading sugar- and coffee-producing territories by the mid-nineteenth century. As a consequence, peripheral producers were brought into greater competition with each other.¹⁴

The central question addressed in this book is, what were the consequences of these structural shifts on a peripheral colonial economy such as Jamaica’s, with respect to the structure and performance of the coffee industry? In seeking to answer this question, this book offers an examination of the contribution of plantation coffee to the diversity of Jamaica’s physical and social landscapes in this period. Chapter 1 examines the distribution and size of coffee-producing properties and