Slavery and Sugar Cane Plantations in Puerto Rico | Finding Your Roots

Actor Justina Machado knew of her deep roots in Puerto Rico and discovered her ancestors on almost every line of her family tree worked on sugar plantations. Cutting sugar cane is, by any measure, brutal work performed by hand in the scorching sun. For centuries, enslaved Africans supplied the labor, but after slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico in 1873, it became the domain of the island’s working class. The growth of the sugarcane industry is intertwined with a significant rise in slavery in Puerto Rico in the early 19th century.