On island after island, Europeans and their pathogens killed the natives, slave ships appeared on the horizon, and cane sprouted in the fields. Streams of survivors crawled forth from slave ships to replenish the cane-field work gangs of men and women as they died. But enslavers grew fabulously rich. On each island, the richest crowded out others. Then a new island came online, offering entrepreneurs the chance to get in on the ground floor with fresher soil, offering investors novelty that attracted new credit. The sugar-island process of destruction and implantation shaped the geopolitics,
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