Download or read book Plantation Societies in the Era of European Expansion written by Judy Bieber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of a widespread ’plantation complex’, in which slave labour produced crops such as sugar on large estates funded by European capital, was a phenomenon of the New World. This book shows how the institution of slavery was transformed by the demand for labour in the Americas, to fill the gap between conquerors and vanquished Indians and to work in mines, workshops, ranches and, above all, on the new plantations that were established to exploit the empty lands. The essays use quantitative methodology to draw conclusions about slave existence and demography, and examine the profitability and varying degrees of harshness of slave systems in different regions. They also consider the questions of manumission and slave resistance.