18th Century (End): By the end of the eighteenth century, the fluid “pre-plantation” economy of the Caribbean had been replaced by a rigid landscape of sugar…

18th Century (End): By the end of the eighteenth century, the fluid “pre-plantation” economy of the Caribbean had been replaced by a rigid landscape of sugar mills, imperial warships, and strict racial hierarchies. The dream of a “masterless” existence for renegades and buccaneers was largely suppressed as the plantation system and the African slave trade expanded. Despite this consolidation, enslavers and employers on both sides of the Atlantic remained deeply concerned by the “seething mobility” of the laboring classes. This mobility allowed for the persistence of resistance and the continued protection of independent, masterless spaces within slave societies.