The Natal Sugar Industry, 1849–1905: An Interpretative Essay

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Abstract
This paper has sought to examine the basis of capital accumulation in the Natal sugar industry from its beginnings in the late 1840s until the opening of Zululand for white settlement in 1905. It has traced the emergence of plantation production in the colony in the context of developments within the regional sugar market and the shifting patterns of the international trade. It has also sought to elucidate the weaknesses of this system which undermined and finally destroyed it in an extended crisis which lasted from the late 1860s until the turn of the century. Finally it has analysed the productive relations which emerged within this reconstructed industry, identifying the large units of production known as the miller-cum-planter concerns which combined central milling activities and extended areas of cane production in a form of monopolistic control which still profoundly affects the industry today.

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