Africans had for millennia been accomplished farmers; not only were they skilled with plow and hoe, but they were also, unlike the English, well used to the heat and resistant to the great killers of the sugar islands—yellow fever and malaria. Best of all, they were cheap in comparison with free English labor, in terms of both initial price and upkeep. After 1660, plantation crews consisting of scores, and then hundreds, of Africans became the norm.
