The small tobacco farmers did not have the capital to develop the large sugar plantations.

Some of them went into other occupations, but most of them returned to Europe.

The new labor needs were filled by a gigantic increase in the importation of African slaves.

The ratio of whites to blacks within the islands changed markedly within a matter of one or two decades.

The white population consisted of a handful of exceedingly wealthy plantation owners and another handful of white plantation managers.