Et in Arcadia ego: West Indian planters in glory, 1674–1784

The decline of West Indian planters in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was both remarkable and, to an extent, inexplicable outside the context of a determined abolitionist onslaught against them. During the eighteenth century, planters in the biggest and most important West Indian colony, Jamaica, created a highly profitable plantation economy in which annual returns on investment were satisfactorily high, debt levels manageable, and productivity rapidly improving. Jamaica on the eve of the American Revolution was one of the wealthiest places in the world. Planters were justified in thinking the future for their colony, for slavery, and for the plantation system was rosy in both the short and long term. © 2012 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC