bsp;Antigua for
military reasons in 1698. During this period, Nevis was the richest of the
British Leeward Islands. The island outranked larger islands
like Jamaica in sugar production in the late 17th century. The wealth
of the planters on the island is evident in the tax records preserved at the
Calendar State Papers in the British Colonial Office Public Records,
where the amount of tax collected on the Leeward Islands was recorded. The sums
recorded for 1676 as "head tax on slaves", a tax payable in sugar,
amounted to 384,600 pounds in Nevis, as opposed to 67,000 each in Antigua and
Saint Kitts, 62,500 in Montserrat, and 5,500 total in the other five
islands. The profits on sugar cultivation in Nevis was enhanced by the
fact that the cane juice from Nevis yielded an unusually high amount
of sugar. A gallon (3.79 litres) of cane juice from Nevis yielded 24 ounces
(0.71 litres) of sugar, whereas a gallon from Saint Kitts yielded 16 ounces
(0.47 litres). Twenty percent of the British Empire's total sugar
production in 1700 was derived from Nevisian plantations. Exports from
West Indian colonies like Nevis were worth more than all the exports from all
the mainland Thirteen colonies of North America combined at the time
of the American Revolution.
The enslaved families formed the large labour force required to work the
sugar plantations. After the 1650s the supply of white indentured servants
began to dry up due to increased wages in England and less incentive to migrate
to the colonies. By the end of the 17th century, the population of Nevis
consisted of a small, rich
