The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica

Jamaica and Saint—Domingue were especially brutal but conspicuously successful eighteenth—century slave societies and imperial colonies. These plantation regimes were, to adopt a metaphor of the era, complex "machines," finely tuned over time by planters, merchants, and officials to become more efficient at exploiting their enslaved workers and serving their empires. Using a wide range of archival evidence, The Plantation Machine traces a critical half—century in the development of the soci...