Optimal Caribbean Policy

Today, I think it's safe to say that most of the Caribbean is effectively bankrupt: the islands are too small to get any economies of scale; the economies are very dependent on tourism and ag exports; and there's no strategic value, so US and other countries' aid and investment is low. The result is a lot of this: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34487450

Obviously, there was a time when these islands were the most profitable European colonies due to sugar plantations, and I'm assuming, excise taxes on sugar exports. So I'm hoping someone can help me out with some questions:

  • When did the colonies' sugar exports stop being so valuable? Was there some sugar beet technology? Did intensive sugar farming exhaust the soil? Did shutting down the Atlantic slave trade drive up labor costs too high? Was there some alternate place where sugar was grown that underpriced the Caribbean?
  • Were European governments willing to trade islands for other land? Like, could the UK have traded Jamaica for Argentina at some point? Maybe French islands to the UK for Indian trading posts? Vieques to Denmark for Iceland? I assume there would be a lot of resistance domestically to any trade, and then you'd have to convince the other government to go along. I also don't know of any trades that actually happened, making me think there wasn't a lot of willingness.
  • If you were a European monarch around 1800, given foresight on the Caribbean economic prospects, would you do anything different? A fire sale? Encourage investment?
Honestly, I think the only place worth taking and keeping is Cuba. It's big (so can support a large enough population to support hospitals, universities, etc.), flat (so it can be policed/controlled and heavily farmed), and close enough to Florida to be integrated in the US economy.
 
Today, I think it's safe to say that most of the Caribbean is effectively bankrupt: the islands are too small to get any economies of scale; the economies are very dependent on tourism and ag exports; and there's no strategic value, so US and other countries' aid and investment is low. The result is a lot of this: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34487450

Obviously, there was a time when these islands were the most profitable European colonies due to sugar plantations, and I'm assuming, excise taxes on sugar exports. So I'm hoping someone can help me out with some questions:

  • When did the colonies' sugar exports stop being so valuable? Was there some sugar beet technology? Did intensive sugar farming exhaust the soil? Did shutting down the Atlantic slave trade drive up labor costs too high? Was there some alternate place where sugar was grown that underpriced the Caribbean?
  • Were European governments willing to trade islands for other land? Like, could the UK have traded Jamaica for Argentina at some point? Maybe French islands to the UK for Indian trading posts? Vieques to Denmark for Iceland? I assume there would be a lot of resistance domestically to any trade, and then you'd have to convince the other government to go along. I also don't know of any trades that actually happened, making me think there wasn't a lot of willingness.
  • If you were a European monarch around 1800, given foresight on the Caribbean economic prospects, would you do anything different? A fire sale? Encourage investment?
Honestly, I think the only place worth taking and keeping is Cuba. It's big (so can support a large enough population to support hospitals, universities, etc.), flat (so it can be policed/controlled and heavily farmed), and close enough to Florida to be integrated in the US economy.


I can't give you exact dates but I think the Sugar Industry largely dropped dead around the 1950's.

Trading islands for assets was accepted practice on the smaller islands that were not developed. However, many of the more lucrative islands (Jamaica, Barbadoes, Guadaloupe, Martinique) had major stakeholders/landowners in the British Parliament and the upper classes. It would be difficult for a government to trade something like that even when the payoff would have been higher. Nobody cared when Tobago traded hands fifteen times but Guadaloupe always found its way back into French hands.
 
My understanding is that sugar production depletes soil so significantly that older sugar colonies tended to stop being profitable after a few decades of production. So Barbados was huge in the late 17th century, but much less profitable by the eighteenth. Jamaica was huge in the early 18th, starting to decline by the late part of the century. By the nineteenth century, Cuba and Brazil are the major centers of the sugar industry, and the British and French colonies are much more marginal.
 
On a purely economical perspective, some countries are too small to be fully viable, and this goes double or triple when they're isolated.

In Europe, Belgium for example is only a strong (per capita) country because it is fully integrated with the Franco-Germano-UK economy.
Switzerland is viable as it's a good place to soak up capital.

These islands cannot reach critical mass on their own and since they're islands, they can't even capitalise on connexions. This is going to sound highly colonialistic but some place are better off when they're integrated with bigger organisation, like the Martinique and the Guadeloupe which, even if they're not the richest part of France, still are on Europe's development level.


To answer your technical question, we can do sugar with Beetroot in Europe. Not as good but way cheaper, especially since you don't need to transport it as far.

Also to point out, it made sense to have a lot of islands as refuelling stations back in the day, something completely obsolete these days.
 
This is going to sound highly colonialistic but some place are better off when they're integrated with bigger organisation, like the Martinique and the Guadeloupe which, even if they're not the richest part of France, still are on Europe's development level.

It doesn't sound so bad when you look at the present situation: a lot of bankrupt island nations. Also, my understanding is that the French islands are heavily supported by subsidies: they're still too small to be economical even when part of France. This is something we're seeing in the US with PR. After 2006, Congress scrapped/let expire some big tax breaks for companies setting up in PR, so the companies left and the economy totally fell apart. The best thing to do might be to encourage people to abandon the islands and turn them into wildlife refuges or something.

Also to point out, it made sense to have a lot of islands as refuelling stations back in the day, something completely obsolete these days.

Good point, but I think that suggests that each nation should have one or two islands and abandon the rest. Or maybe just abandon the Caribbean entirely and cut a deal with a few other powers if you think you need a port.
 
Well, if Britain was to pursue an integration policy rather than their OTL 'just let them drift off if they want to' like France then that could lead to either a Gaudeloupe/Martinique situation for them or possibly the creation of a 'Devolved Parliament for the Caribbean' down the line which might help with the connections.
 

Driftless

Donor
My understanding is that sugar production depletes soil so significantly that older sugar colonies tended to stop being profitable after a few decades of production. So Barbados was huge in the late 17th century, but much less profitable by the eighteenth. Jamaica was huge in the early 18th, starting to decline by the late part of the century. By the nineteenth century, Cuba and Brazil are the major centers of the sugar industry, and the British and French colonies are much more marginal.

Sugar Cane is of the same taxonomic Family of grasses(Poaceae), such as maize, rice, wheat, etc. Sugar Cane requires a lot of sunshine and water, and warm temps. All of those plants listed above do deplete the soil quickly and require some heavy loads of fertilizer (chemical and/or organic) to keep them productive. I'd bet that most chemical fertilizers are imported to the Caribbean islands and not produced locally. Conventional pelletized chemical fertilizer is very dense and very heavy by volume, so transport even once on shore is difficult; nowdays often requiring very specialized vehicles. I also beleive that Sugar Cane growing in dense stands is highly subject to both pests and diseases, which back-in-the-day would have reduced yields and added to cost. With current agricultural methods, do they dose the Cane fields with pesticides & herbicides?
 
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