Good Essay On Plantocracy

Plantocracy refers to the political order that is mostly dominated by plantation owners. In most cases, it is a government or ruling class that is composed of owners of the plantations. Other books refer to it as slavocracy (Ferguson, 01). Additionally, it is about certain groups of wealthy people who deal with farming and hence have strong political affiliations. Around the start of the 17th century, planters discovered a new source of their revenue when they were introduced to the farming of sugarcane by other groups who had successfully done so. By mid the 17th century, plantations owners such as for sugarcane were excessively involved in producing and exporting sugar. This process led to the attraction of landowners who happened to be rich. The attraction led to the exclusion of the poor people of the land due to strong political affiliations of the land owners, a process called plantocracy. An example of an organization that represented several plantocracies was the West Indies Lobby. The group represented the plantocracies in the British Parliament whereby it is remembered for the delay in the eradication of the slave trade that was supposed to occur in the late 18th century. It made the implementation occur in the early 19th century. For instance in Barbados, the high cost of white labor rose in England forcing for the importation of slaves from West Africa especially Gold Coast. The growth and dependence on farming and the lucrative returns from the farming made it possible for the few individuals to be rich. The richness fostered their acquisition of political power that they eventually excised on the poor and oppressed. This meant that the wealthy farm owners were the only ones able to excise authority over others, the advent of plantocracy (Ferguson, 03).

Work Cited

Ferguson, J. A Traveller's History of the Caribbean. Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2008.