Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico
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A01=David M. Stark
African slave trade
agricultural economy
animal husbandry
Arecibo
Author_David M. Stark
Caribbean
Category=NHK
Category=NHTS
David Stark
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
families
family formation
family life of slaves
family reconstitution
food cultivation
hato economy
history
livestock ranching
parish records
plantation
plantation regimes
Puerto Rico
Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico
slave marriage
slavery
Spanish Caribbean
timber harvesting
West Indies
Product details
- ISBN 9780813060439
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 169 x 218mm
- Publication Date: 03 Mar 2015
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Scholarship on slavery in the Caribbean frequently emphasizes sugar and tobacco production, but this unique work illustrates the importance of the hato economy—a combination of livestock ranching, foodstuff cultivation, and timber harvesting—to the region.
David Stark makes use of extensive Catholic parish records to provide a comprehensive examination of slavery in Puerto Rico and across the Spanish Caribbean. He reconstructs slave families to examine incidences of marriage, as well as birth and death rates. These records provide never-before-analyzed details about how many enslaved Africans came to Puerto Rico, where they came from, and how their populations grew through natural increase.
Stark convincingly argues that when animal husbandry drove much of the island’s economy, slavery was less harsh than in better-known plantation regimes geared toward crop cultivation. Slaves in the hato economy experienced more favorable conditions for family formation, relatively relaxed work regimes, higher fertility rates, and lower mortality rates.
Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico offers a fresh counterpoint to the focus on sugar and tobacco cultivation that has dominated the historiography of the Spanish Caribbean.
David Stark makes use of extensive Catholic parish records to provide a comprehensive examination of slavery in Puerto Rico and across the Spanish Caribbean. He reconstructs slave families to examine incidences of marriage, as well as birth and death rates. These records provide never-before-analyzed details about how many enslaved Africans came to Puerto Rico, where they came from, and how their populations grew through natural increase.
Stark convincingly argues that when animal husbandry drove much of the island’s economy, slavery was less harsh than in better-known plantation regimes geared toward crop cultivation. Slaves in the hato economy experienced more favorable conditions for family formation, relatively relaxed work regimes, higher fertility rates, and lower mortality rates.
Slave Families and the Hato Economy in Puerto Rico offers a fresh counterpoint to the focus on sugar and tobacco cultivation that has dominated the historiography of the Spanish Caribbean.
David M. Stark is associate professor of history at Grand Valley State University, USA.
