The Leeward Islands Sugar Economy and Enslaved Resistance

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History · Sep 7, 2026 · 10m · transcript

While the Haitian Revolution shook the Atlantic world in the late 1790s, the British Leeward Islands were quietly undergoing a different kind of transformation. This episode explores how the collapse of Saint-Domingue’s coffee supply created an unexpected boom for sugar planters in Antigua, Nevis, and Barbuda. We look at the specific economic mechanisms that allowed these islands to pivot from tobacco and cotton to sugar monoculture, relying on increasingly brutal labor systems to meet European demand. The narrative follows the arrival of thousands of newly enslaved Africans from the Bight of…