Thriving in a declining economy - Elite persistence in the West Indies, 1760-1914

Abstract

The issue of how elites as a social group come to be, how they maintain their position and how they affect the society they come to control is very much at the centre of the inequality debate. The present paper studies one of the most extreme unequal societies ever recorded, that of the sugar-based economies in the West Indies, and examines the emergence and persistence of its economic elite by focusing on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. The study spans 154 years, enabling us to study long-run elite persistence along with the effects that major economic, institutional, and social changes had on it. Our study shows that elite persistence remained high throughout this period, despite several potential ‘critical junctures’ taking place. The Crucian elite not only managed to maintain its relative standing but also to accumulate a growing share of the total wealth available on the island. Maintaining a grip on the economy did, nonetheless, coincide with a severe and rapid impoverishment in absolute terms.