colonial agriculture
Settler crop cultivation
Colonial agriculture refers to farming systems established by colonizing powers in territories they controlled, typically organized around export crops like sugar, cotton, tobacco, or rubber rather than local food needs.
These systems often relied on forced labor, slavery, or exploitative arrangements with indigenous populations.
The term appears in historical and economic discussions: Colonial agriculture reshaped Caribbean landscapes for sugar production.
The legacy persists in land ownership patterns and crop dependencies across formerly colonized regions.
- cash cropsPlants grown for profit
- land grantsGovernment-awarded real estate parcels
- stolen landIllegitimately acquired territory
- slaveryOwnership of people
- forced laborCompelled toil, no consent
plantation economy · plantation owners · colonial masters · indentured servitude · monoculture · labor exploitation · forced migration · peonage · deforestation · mercantilism · export economy · encomienda · bonded labor · biodiversity loss · sharecropping · serfdom · triangular trade · feudal estates
colonial agricultureindigenous agriculture
Farming by original peoples
traditional farming · smallholder farming · cooperative farming · communal farming
colonial agriculturesubsistence farming
Growing food for household
subsistence agriculture · polyculture · family farming · kitchen gardens