I was recently asked how many enslaved workers were needed to operate a sugar plantation. The answer isn’t simple — much like asking, “How long is a piece of string?” By the peak of St. Croix’s sugar industry, the original 150-acre Danish plantations had often been subdivided or merged, making estate sizes highly variable. In addition, not all of an estate’s acreage was suitable for sugar production, and many estates lacked their own processing factories, reducing their need for labor.
Between 1795 and 1800, St. Croix’s sugar economy reached its height, with approximately 30,000 acres under cultivation. At that time, the island supported an enslaved population of 18,000 to 20,000, alongside 1,500 to 2,000 Europeans, and maintained roughly 150 operating sugar mills.
Using a general estimate of one laborer per 1.5 acres of cultivated sugarcane, it’s reasonable to approximate that an original 150-acre plantation would have required about 100 enslaved workers to sustain its operations.