Admin Did the British colonies export goods to the West Indies?
The English colonies in North America sent fish and lumber to the West Indies in exchange for enslaved people and sugar. Goods and people flowed from Europe, Africa, and North America in the system of transatlantic trade.
What did the West Indies export?
By the 1770s, West Indian planters were exporting nearly 100,000 tons of sugar and 2 million gallons of rum to Britain and the North American colonies, the combined value of which reached almost £4 million.
Who Owns the West Indies?
Consequently, the West Indies Federation was dissolved in 1962. The territories are now fully independent sovereign states, except for five – Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands – which remain British Overseas Territories, as does Bermuda.
What was the basis of the British West Indies economy?
Both enslaved and free workers mainly worked on sugar and coffee plantations known as estates or adjoining cattle pens that provided livestock for the plantation economy. The white population of the British West Indies consisted of proprietors, a supervisory class, professionals and skilled tradesmen.
What did the British trade with the West Indian colonies?
Consequently, about 85 percent of British West Indian exports were consigned to Britain. The rest were traded to the mainland colonies in exchange for lumber, grain, flour, and salt fish.
What is the history of the British West Indies?
History of the British West Indies. In the history of the British West Indies there have been several attempts at political unions. These attempts have occurred over a period of more than 300 years, from 1627 to 1958, and were carried out, or sometimes imposed, first by the English and then the British government.
Why was sugar important to the British West Indies?
The British West Indies were tightly interwoven with the economies and societies of their northern neighbors, especially New England and the middle provinces, as a major market for their exports and supplier of goods that American colonials consumed, processed, and re-exported. Sugar, like tobacco, depended on slave labor.
What are the 12 colonies of the British West Indies?
In 1912, the British West Indies were divided into different colonies: The Bahamas, Barbados, Guiana, British Honduras, Jamaica (with its dependencies the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Cayman Islands), Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands, and the Leeward Islands.