Sugar mill labor killed enslaved Africans Las Casas thought immortal

Evidence

In the old days, before there were any ingenios, we used to think in this island that, if a Negro were not hanged, he would never die, because we had never seen one die of illness, and we were sure that, like oranges, they had found their habitat, this island being more natural to them than Guinea. But after they were put to work in the ingenios, on account of the excessive labor they had to endure, and the drinks they take made from cane syrup, death and pestilence were the result, and many of them died. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 630

Categorization

• CANDY: Las Casas admitting colonists once thought enslaved Africans immortal ‘like oranges’ until the ingenios killed them is a vivid, tellable irony. Bite-sized with a punchline.