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Migration, Empires and the People in Britain, c790 to the Present Day

Sugar and the Caribbean

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 2 section A

Overview

Elizabethan privateers and John Hawkins, the triangular trade and the Middle Passage, sugar on Barbados, Jamaica and the other islands, life and resistance on the sugar estates, the ports and families that grew rich from the trade, and how sugar changed daily life in Britain.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is the difference between a privateer and a pirate?

Key term

Which three legs made up the Atlantic trade in enslaved people?

Key term

What was the Middle Passage?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did Elizabethan privateers such as Francis Drake do in the Caribbean?

    Model answer

    They raided Spanish treasure fleets and colonial ports with the queen’s quiet approval and shared the proceeds with her; Spain regarded them simply as pirates.

  2. 2

    What is the difference between a privateer and a pirate?

    Model answer

    A privateer carried a licence from his own government permitting him to attack enemy shipping, while a pirate robbed for himself and was an outlaw to everyone.

  3. 3

    What was John Hawkins the first Englishman to do?

    Model answer

    In the 1560s he carried captive Africans across the Atlantic and sold them in Spanish colonies, beginning English involvement in the trade in enslaved people.

  4. 4

    Which three legs made up the Atlantic trade in enslaved people?

    Model answer

    Britain to West Africa carrying manufactured goods, Africa to the Americas carrying captives, and the Americas home again carrying sugar, tobacco and cotton.

  5. 5

    What was the Middle Passage?

    Model answer

    The Atlantic crossing on which captives were chained below decks for weeks; disease, thirst and cruelty killed a large share of them before they landed.

  6. 6

    Why did Barbados matter so much after English settlement began there in 1627?

    Model answer

    Planters turned from tobacco to sugar in the 1640s, and sugar raised by enslaved labour made that small island the richest English colony of its day.

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