Final Essay 1492

Plantation - Essay 

One of the most significant changes between the world of 1500 and the present is the development and proliferation of plantations as a highly successful form of capitalist production. Plantations, unlike other forms of sedentary agriculture, were not only places of production, but also served as living spaces for people. They resembled the structure of industrial factories or medieval Latin Christendom, where people lived and worked. Initially emerging in the Mediterranean and North Africa, plantations were later transported to regions like Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Carolinas. Over the next four centuries, they transformed from relatively small operations to large-scale enterprises, becoming a dominant force in capitalist production from the mid-1600s to the late 1800s. The expansion and success of plantations marked a significant shift in the global economic landscape during this period and up until now. The plantation truly shaped the way that work and life is conducted under a capitalist system.

The plantation can be looked at through Marx’s terms of capitalism and class while exemplifying the intensified nature of racialization, which took  form in the way that we know it today by the exploitation of human beings. The way of life on plantations was shaped by rigid capitalist values. The members of the bourgeoisie who owned the plantations created a society that was distinctly more capitalistic than the others in the time period. These values came through by the exploitive ways that the bourgie gained commodities. For example, most of the work on plantations was performed by human beings who were bought and sold on a profit basis. The legal conditions allowed for unfree people to be seen as commodities, meaning that a person was equivalent to their labor. Plantations were extremely capitalist in nature, as the activities of plantations were geared for maximizing profit on an ongoing basis. The very purpose of the plantation was to produce goods that would be traded and/or sold for profit, creating commodities while actively exploiting human beings for the purpose of profit. This form of capitalism is also reflected in the way that agriculture was conducted, as a monocrop system that is similar to how the majority of crops are still planted today. As a capitalist enterprise, the plantation did not support its own community. Rather, it was geared to maximizing profit with the main driver of producing the most profitable crop possible. Monocrop agriculture on plantations primarily produced tobacco, sugar, and cotton, which also do not contribute to supporting a healthy life or diet.   

Class systems were heavily in effect when looking at the make up of plantations. The plantation was always a capitalist tool with distinct classes. One position was owner, manager, or overseer who made sure that the work was getting done, and the other was the worker. In addition to these two distinct classes, one's class position was also extremely correlated with two distinct legal positions; those who are free and those who are not, which contributed to racialization. This form of racialization reflected the owner class who were Europeans, and the unfree who were African and black. Racialization of unfree people became universal across the work and life of plantations. 

The racialization that took place in the US was binary; white and black, even though there was everything in between. This established the one drop concept, where if you had one drop of non white blood, you could not be a part of the free ruling class. Yet, the Caribbean was more of a tripartite, which was a social construct, instead of some sort of reality. Unfree laborers in that specific class distinction did not originally have a set race. The technical differences in the law was that being unfree resulted in being sold to plantation owners as an indentured servant versus being sold as unfree, a slave. The legal distinction was based on the actual type of transaction that determined whether a person was an indentured servant who would work a specific amount of time to earn their freedom, or a slave who would remain permanently unfree. This was not based on race specifically, yet there was a correlation with the country of origin. The basis of this type of racialization in 1600 had no mention of race, because that wasn't a social category. However, there still was not a significant difference between the level of freedom. Only twenty percent of the indentured servants actually became free, so the concept was more of an abstraction than a reality. In the 1600 to 1620s, if you were unfree, whether that be indentured servant or slave, it was basically the same condition. After the 1670s, when indentured servants began to be phased out of plantations, slaves became a greater market with the vast majority of them being black people. The three class positions corresponded with human legal status, so the owners and managers were legally free and the workers were almost all legally unfree. These conditions created intense racialization of those individuals who were of African descent by those who were of European descent. Class status became intertwined with race and unfreedom on the plantation, and was one of the most horrific forms of human suffering and exploitation in human history. 

The history of the plantation completely shaped the class distinction where race is closely tied with class. In 1700 and 1800s after the abolishment of slavery, preconceived positions became imagined for the extreme fabrication and linking of racial distinction. These values that were created on the plantation follow us in everyday life today, as we continue to live in a systemically capitalist world. The plantation is capitalism at its highest form, so therefore, capitalism continues to spread and thrive the plantation's values. For example, within the capitalism of the plantation, racialized groups and race laws were created to divide the solidarity of the working class. The systems rooted in the work of a plantation seem to continue to play out through capitalism and racism in our society today, as the development of laws were intentionally made to prevent the working class from thriving. If the working class were to thrive, the capitalist would lose money and would need to rely on the state to provide a fair amount of money to succeed. Yet, that would go against capitalist ideological claims that there should be no state intervention, even though capitalists use the state to benefit themselves and hurt the working class. The capitalist class speaks endlessly about a free market while constantly using the state to help themselves, and they are opposed to allowing the state to help the working class. Ultimately, it is my opinion that the plantation has shaped the very foundation of our societal makeup for a capitalistic way of life that hugely benefits capitalist and disadvantages the working class today. 

Given that the systems of racism and capitalism are so complex, clearly there were other major contributing factors beyond the proliferation of plantations and our course work between the world of 1500 and the present. A significant gap in my knowledge that I uncovered and gained a new understanding of is that the capitalist production of goods when functioning most efficiently relies on exploitation of workers, racialization, and classist identities. The insight and understanding of the true nature of capitalism that our society is based on provides important context as to why people are systematically oppressed in our nation. The plantation created true social division among people based on race and class that served as a catalyst for the exploitation and racialization of people in our nation today.