A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income.

2025年1月22日 · This article describes the plantation system in the United States and the Caribbean as a tool of British colonialism that contributed to social and political inequality. It makes a connection between the economic prosperity of the South and the exploitation of enslaved people.

2021年6月18日 · From a humble beginning as a sweet treat grown in gardens, sugar cane cultivation became an economic powerhouse, and the growing demand for sugar stimulated the colonization of the New World by European powers, brought slavery to the forefront, and fostered brutal revolutions and wars.

2025年2月22日 · The typical plantation was a self-sustained community, an economic and political institution governed with a monopoly of authority by the planter. Plantation crops were determined by soil and climate, with tobacco, cotton, rice, indigo, and sugarcane, for example, each predominating in a certain zone of the southeastern colonies of North America .

A plantation economy is an agricultural system characterized by large-scale production of cash crops, primarily on plantations that rely heavily on labor, often through forced or exploitative means.

The plantation economy model posits that plantation slavery and specialization in export of primary commodities has marked the evolution of the societies in which it existed.

Plantation economies emerged primarily in the southern British colonies due to favorable climate conditions and fertile land for growing cash crops. The economy of these regions heavily relied on enslaved labor, which became a defining feature of plantation societies.