Number of sugar plantations and estates in Jamaica 1768-1854

In the colonial era of Jamaica's history, the number of sugar estates and plantations in Jamaica was highest during Atlantic slavery's peak, in the years just before 1807. When the Atlantic slave trade was abolished by the British Empire in 1807, Jamaica's sugar industry went into decline, and Cuba became the global market leader. The abolition of slavery in 1834 (although full emancipation was not achieved until 1838) contributed further to its decline, and in the fifty years between 1804 and 1854, the number of sugar estates dropped by over 60 percent, and almost halved between 1844 and 1854 alone. By the end of the century (1894), Jamaica had one of the lowest sugar outputs in the British West Indies, behind Guyana, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands; when combined, the sugar output of the entire British West Indies was just a fraction of Cuba's sugar output.