14 décembre 2002
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Jean-François Géraud, « Des habitations-sucreries aux usines sucrières : la "mise en sucre" de l'île Bourbon, 1783-1848 », HAL-SHS : histoire, ID : 10670/1.tcwfvl
The introduction of the sugar industry in Bourbon island being a relatively recent phenomenon to have taken place within the natural frontiers of an insular region makes it possible to study the actual sugar production in a manner that differs from the sole macroeconomic approach, and could truly be analysed at factory level. Why has a plant, that up till then had been farmed to produce alcohol, been subsequently used to produce sugar ? What incidence has the lack of a sugar-producing tradition had on technological options ? How has it favoured the development of that industry, tackled the problem of the innovation process, and implemented a local technical model that was to be exported within the region, to the Malayan Straits, and as far as the West Indies and Brazil ? In what way has slavery, on account of its inflexibility, finally impeded the action of the planters turned entrepreneurs whose factories have, from then on, become the "missing link" between the failure of the first abolition (1794-1796) and the success of the second (1848) ?