Morgan Lewis Windmill, Barbados, West Indies, image by Mary Battle, March 2012. By 1690, however, Lowcountry planters had successfully applied the West Indian plantation model to rice, and Carolina rapidly developed into a lucrative plantation economy and slave society. Carolina settlers also engaged in the fur trade with American Indians, extracted tar and pitch for naval stores, and raised livestock for exporting packed beef to the English West Indies. Initially, Lowcountry planters attempted and failed to develop a cash crop from olives, grapes, mulberry trees, and different English-based grains. Sugarcane never became a major cash crop in Carolina, but these Barbadians eventually transplanted their West Indian model of plantations and slavery to the new colony. These white Barbadians often brought enslaved Africans and African Barbadians with them. They also recruited white settlers from this English West Indian colony to help launch their new North American settlement. To ensure financial success, they sent representatives to study the lucrative sugar plantation system on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The Lords decided to combine their shares to establish a profit-seeking proprietary settlement, Carolina, between the English colony of Virginia and Spanish Florida. In 1663, eight Lords Proprietors in England received land grants in North America from King Charles II for their loyalty to the monarchy during the English Civil War. The development of a plantation economy and African slavery in Carolina began before English colonists even settled Charles Town in 1670. Barbadian settlers brought the plantation model to the Carolina colony, and reliance on African enslaved labor. This painting depicts the presence of enslaved Africans and African European " mulattos" in Barbados, as well as a sugarcane plantation in the background. 1764, courtesy of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society. "The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl," painting by Augostino Brunias, ca.
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