The seventeenth century Caribbean can be described as a time of transience and disaster as well as fortune and growth. The English occupancy of this region increased during this century, geographically and in terms of trade. Economically, the Caribbean was looked upon as the "gem of the crown" after the introduction of the sugar crop in the 1640's. The sugar phenomenon generated the need for slave labour in the form of African slave import and …showed first 75 words of 1866 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1866 total…of family values, as natural conditions were foreign and harsh. To compare the conditions of the slave and the white indentured labourer is to compare two groups of people with largely the same fates: death or servitude. The attitude that both groups were expendable, and that constant influx of ships from Europe and Africa with replacements is indicative of the value they had in society. They were both seen as commodities, not as human beings.