About this issue of KonaK-Realitätsausschnitte aus Kontinentalamerika und der Karibik:
Sugar cane plantation complexes in the 19th century were large industrial plants with factories, factory chimneys and, from the 1840s onwards, railroad connections for freight transport. The slaves in the sugar factories, most of whom were imported from West Africa, were therefore factory workers in the tropics and had to work 12 to 14 hours a day under inhumane conditions.
Among the factory owners, especially in the centers of the "second slavery" in Cuba and Brazil - we are referring to around 5 million slaves working in the sugar industry there around 1840 - we find hundreds of German entrepreneurs, but also Swiss and subjects of the Habsburg monarchy. The exploitation of African bodies and the trade in slaves made many a German-speaking entrepreneur a millionaire.
(Translated from cover page)