First Vintage Books edition (1984), recently reissued.

Pp60. “The planters were not anti-monopoly. They wanted monopoly as much as the Spanish King, but monopoly in their interests. There was one aspect of monopoly which the planters not only accepted but advocated and wished to reinforce. That was the colonial monopoly of the Spanish sugar market. The bete noire of the Spanish colonials was Brazil. The sixteenth century of the world sugar market was waged between Spain and Portugal. The Bishop of Santo Dominique and the Judge of Hispaniola pleaded the cause of the planers in 1540. They urged that the importation of sugar from ‘other kingdoms of Spain’ should be prohibited, and that permission to take sugar to Spain should be conceded to all the ports of the King of Spain’s dominions, or at least to Flanders. The Council of the Indies was favorably disposed, but in the following year the Emperor was content to request the Council to take advice on the matter and give him its views on the question of prohibiting sugar imports from Portugal.

Next in importance to the Seville monopoly from the colonial standpoint was the monopoly of the slave trade. The planters opposed the system of licenses and asientos, and advocated free trade. They opposed also the religious limitations with which the Spanish Government had originally hemmed in the slave trade. In 1517 the Geronomite Fathers in Hispaniola begged the Spanish Government to issue general licences for the importation lf slaves from West Africa into the West Indies: ‘We beg you to grant this, and to grant it soon, because these people are driving us crazy about ti and in our opinion they are right.’ They were not the last people to be driven almost out of their minds by the question of slavery.’

Read a little further, and we see the president of Brazil say “Rich countries need to reduce farm subsidies and trade barriers to allow poor countries to generate income with food exports” as if it is a great idea for the foreign producers to simply reverse the trade imbalance. Apart from the impossibility of expecting US producers to allow their own throats to be cut, what sort of idiot is Lula to be dreaming of cash crops when (presumably) his people are going hungry? Back to Haiti. Like the article said, Haiti used to feed itself just fine, thank you very much. Why any Latin American leader would be dumb enough to call for something other than ensuring his country’s domestic food supply is inexplicable.