Wade Hampton of South
Carolina responded in 1811 by carrying a large force of his slaves to
establish a sugar estate of his own at the head of Bayou Lafourche, and a
few others followed his example. The radical difference of the industrial
methods in sugar from those in the other staples, however, together with
the predominance of the French language, the Catholic religion and a
Creole social regime in the district most favorable for sugar, made
Anglo-Americans chary of the enterprise; and the revival of cotton prices
after 1815 strengthened the tendency of migrating planters to stay within
the cotton latitudes. Many of those who settled about Baton Rouge and on
the Red River with cotton as their initial concern shifted to sugar at the
end of the 'twenties, however, in response to the tariff of 1828 which
heightened sugar prices at a time when the cotton market was depressed.
This was in response, also, to the introduction of ribbon cane which
matured earlier than the previously used Malabar and Otaheite varieties and
could accordingly be grown in a somewhat higher latitude.
The territorial spread was mainly responsible for the sudden advance of the
number of sugar estates from 308 operating in 1827, estimated as employing
21,000 able-bodied slaves and having a gross value of $34,000,000, to 691
plantations in 1830,[42] with some 36,000 working slaves and a gross value
of $50,000,000.
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