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:
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?