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Dominican Republic Sugar Plantations
Most sugar mills and cane fields were concentrated in
the
southeast coastal plains. Three large groups owned 75
percent of
the land: the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del
AzúcarCEA ), Casa Vicini (a family operation), and Central Romana
(formerly owned by Gulf and Western Corporation). The
government
created CEA in 1966, largely from lands and facilities
formerly
held by the Trujillo family.
In the mid-1980s, there were roughly 4,500
colonos
(sugar planters) who owned some 62,500 hectares. These
small to
middle-sized landholders were independent growers who sold
their
harvested cane to the sugar mills. Although the level of
prosperity of the colonos varied significantly,
some were
prosperous enough to hire laborers to cut their cane and
to buy
cane from smaller producers. Their actual number
fluctuated
widely in response to the market for cane. There were only
3,200
in 1970; this number had more than doubled by 1980, but it
had
then declined by mid-decade.
Some colonos were descendants of former small
mill
owners driven out of business during the expansion of
sugar
production in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth
century.
The parents, or grandparents, of others were either
subsistence
farmers, who had switched to cane cultivation in response
to
rising demand for sugar, or successful field workers. Like
virtually all Dominican farmers, colonos faced land
fragmentation that increased geometrically with each
generation.
Sugar mills continued to be a major source of work for
rural
Dominicans, although direct employment peaked at a high of
roughly 100,000 workers in the early 1970s. By the
mid-1980s, the
mills employed approximately 65,000 workers. The sugar
industry
generated considerable indirect employment as well; some
observers estimated that as much as 30 percent of the
population
was directly or indirectly affected by sugar production
(see Dominican Republic - Crops
, ch. 3). The 40,000 to 50,000 cane cutters
constituted the
bulk of the work force. Most were immigrant Haitians or
their
descendants
(see Dominican Republic - Haitians
, this ch.). In the sugar
industry's
highly stratified work force, there were clear divisions
among
cane cutters, more skilled workers (largely Dominicans),
clerical
staff, and managers. Workers' settlements (bateyes)
dotted
the mill and the surrounding fields; they usually included
stores, schools, and a number of other facilities.
Data as of December 1989
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