THE SUGAR ISLANDS As regards negro slavery the history of the West Indies is inseparable from that of North America.

In them the plantation system originated and reached its greatest scale, and from them the institution of slavery was extended to the continent.

The industrial system on the islands, and particularly on those occupied by the British, is accordingly instructive as an introduction and a parallel to the continental regime.
The early career of the island of Barbados gives a striking instance of a farming colony captured by the plantation system.

Founded in 1624 by a group of unprosperous English emigrants, it pursued an even and commonplace tenor until the Civil War in England sent a crowd of royalist refugees thither, together with some thousands of Scottish and Irish prisoners converted into indentured servants.

Negro slaves were also imported to work alongside the redemptioners in the tobacco, cotton, ginger, and indigo crops, and soon proved their superiority in that climate, especially when yellow fever, to which the Africans are largely immune, decimated the white population.