ABSTRACT
In terms of the primary sociopolitical and economic factors that shared a major role in the cultural evolution of Hispaniola, it was azúcar (sugar) that was the unquestioned protagonist. There is very little doubt that sugar and sugar byproducts became the actual backbone of the island’s economy, serving in time as an accurate gauge of the colony’s continued viability or ruin. No discussion of sugar could possibly be complete without the intricately interwoven topic of slavery. Slavery penetrated deeply and sustained sugar production to the degree that cultivation of this crop soon blossomed into the sugar industry. What resulted was an entirely new subculture, the slave-plantation complex. A truly symbiotic relationship developed since the large-scale sugar industry depended exclusively upon a constant and very heavy supply of slave labor. Sugar managed to create its own distinct form of society whose imprint still is very visible today in the cultural patterns of La República Dominicana.
