Atlantic Sugar Plantation System

Timeline

1. c. 1450–1580Madeira Islands · Madeira IslandsPortugal developed sugar cultivation and sugar mills on Atlantic islands based on African slave labor, forming a transferable template of plantation technology, labor organization, and commercial networks that laid the groundwork for expansion to the Americas.
2. 1580–1590Bahia and Pernambuco · BrazilIn the 1580s, sugar plantations in northeastern Brazil expanded along the coast, with engenhos (sugar mills) and African slave imports growing in step; after the 1580 union of the Iberian crowns, Brazilian sugar was integrated into a larger imperial trade network, with exports to Antwerp and the Mediterranean increasing.
3. 1585–1590Hispaniola and Cuba · CubaIn the late 1580s, Spanish Caribbean islands began experimenting with sugar cultivation; though on a smaller scale than Brazil, plantation labor systems and transatlantic slave trade patterns were gradually transplanted, laying preconditions for the Caribbean sugar revolution of the seventeenth century.