the sugar trade (who continued to control Curaçao), Jews were originally not allowed to own more than two slaves in Barbados, but aided the sugar plantations in other ways, bringing their expert knowledge of technologies in cultivating rum from the sugar cane and working as merchants, supplying them with African slaves to work the plantations, helping to make Barbados the sugar capital of the Caribbean and the rum capital of the world. By 1706, the laws against Jews owning sugar plantations in Barbados has been dropped. During the colonial period, the arrival of sugar culture deeply impacted the society and economy in the Caribbean. It not only dramatically increased the ratio of slaves to free men, but it increased the average size of slave plantations. Early sugar plantations made extensive use of slaves because sugar was considered a cash crop that exhibited economies of scale in cultivation; it was most efficiently grown on large plantations with many workers. People from Africa were imported and made to work on the plantations. For example, prior to 1650 more than three-quarters of the islands' population were of European descent. In 1680, the median size of a plantation in Barbados had increased to about 60 slaves. Over the decades, the sugar plantations began expanding as the transatlantic trade continued to prosper. In 1832, the median-size plantation in Jamaica had about 150 slaves, and nearly one of every four bondsmen lived on units that had at least 250 slaves. For about 100 years, Barbados remained the richest of all the European colonies in the Caribbean region. The colony's prosperity remained regionally unmatched until sugar cane production expanded in larger colonies, such as Saint-Domingue and Jamaica. As part of the mass sugar industry, sugar cane processing gave rise to related commodities such as rum, molasses, and falernum. The West India Interest was formed in the 1740s, when the British merchants joined with the West Indian sugar planters. The British and West Indies shared profits and needs. This organization was the first sugar-trading organization which had a large voice in Parliament. In the 1740s, Jamaica and Saint Domingue (Haiti) became the world's main sugar producers. They increased production in Saint Domingue by using an irrigation system that French engineers built. The engineers also built reservoirs, diversion dams, levees, aqueducts, and canals. In addition, they improved their mills and used varieties of cane and grasses. 19th century According