War breaks out again in 1673 and continues until 1677, when Khoikhoi resistance is destroyed by a combination of superior European weapons and Dutch manipulation of divisions among the local people.

Hereafter, Khoikhoi society in the western Cape disintegrates.

Some people find jobs as shepherds on European farms; others reject foreign rule and
move away from the Cape.

Eastern West Indies (1672–1683 CE): Sugar Economies, Consolidation, and Demographic Transformation

Expansion of the Sugar Economy

Between 1672 and 1683, the Eastern West Indies solidified their position as a crucial component of Europe's burgeoning sugar-based economy. Sugar, increasingly popular in Europe, became a prime commodity due to its favorable balance between bulk and value—an essential consideration given the era's limitations in shipping technology and the high costs of transoceanic transport. This transformation dramatically reshaped landholding patterns and economic dynamics across the region.

Concentration of Wealth and Land

The shift toward sugar cultivation significantly altered local socio-economic structures. For instance, in Barbados, a representative case, the sugar revolutions profoundly changed ownership patterns. In 1640, Barbados had approximately ten thousand settlers, predominantly small white landholders. By 1680, a small elite of one hundred seventy-five planters controlled about fifty-four percent of the island’s land, servants, and enslaved Africans. The island's demographics had drastically changed, now comprising around thirty-eight thousand enslaved Africans and more than two thousand landless English servants. Families such as the Rous family exemplified this shift: from modest beginnings in the 1640s, by 1680, they had acquired extensive sugar plantations, hundreds of enslaved laborers, and considerable economic power.

Growth of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

This era saw an exponential increase in the importation of enslaved Africans to sustain the labor-intensive sugar economy. The Dutch West India Company remained critical in supplying enslaved Africans, further embedding the tragic and exploitative triangular trade system that connected Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. Conditions for enslaved individuals were harsh and oppressive, characterized by grueling labor, rampant disease, and high mortality rates.

Rivalries and Military Fortifications

The increasing wealth generated by the sugar industry attracted persistent threats from rival European powers and pirates. To safeguard their interests, European colonial governments intensified efforts to fortify strategic locations. Santo Domingo and San Juan, Puerto Rico maintained and expanded their network of fortifications, crucial in defending the Spanish colonies from naval threats and piracy.

Decline of Indigenous Populations

By the end of this era, the indigenous Taíno populations had nearly vanished due to a combination of European diseases, harsh labor conditions, social disruption, and the encomienda system. Despite sporadic legislative attempts to protect indigenous peoples, such as the Laws of Burgos from 1512–1513, effective enforcement was virtually nonexistent, leading to near-total demographic collapse and cultural erasure.

Cultural and Ecclesiastical Consolidation

The Roman Catholic Church remained central to the cultural and social organization of the colonies. Ecclesiastical influence was manifested in the continuation and completion of significant religious edifices, notably the cathedrals in Santo Domingo and San Juan, constructed in the distinct Plateresque style.

Conclusion

The period from 1672 to 1683 marked a culmination of the transformations initiated by the sugar revolutions. Economic prosperity driven by sugar cultivation significantly benefited a small colonial elite while intensifying the inhuman conditions faced by the enslaved African population. Simultaneously, European colonial competition and military fortifications continued to shape the geopolitical landscape of the Eastern West Indies, setting enduring patterns of social inequality and economic dependency.

The French had taken Saint Thomas  in 1672 but had soon been driven out by the Dutch.

Chandernagore (present-day Chandannagar) is established in 1673 with the permission of Nawab Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal.

The French acquire Valikondapuram, on the Coromandel Coast, from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1674, and thus is laid the foundation of Pondichéry, which is to become a principal base of the French East India Company.

A ship in the service of the East India Company had been forced to land on Ceylon en route to Persia, after suffering the loss of the ship's mast on November 1659 in a storm.

The ship had been impounded and sixteen of the crew, including Captain Robert Knox and his eifhteen-year-old son, also named Robert Knox, had been taken captive by the troops of the Kandyan king, Râjasingha II.

The elder Knox had inadvertently angered the king by not observing the expected formalities and had the misfortune to do so during a period of tension between the king and some of the European powers.

Although the crew was forbidden from leaving the kingdom, they were treated fairly leniently; the younger Knox was able to establish himself as a farmer, moneylender and peddler.

Both father and son had suffered severely from malaria and the elder Knox had died in February 1661 after a long illness.

The younger Knox had eventually escaped with one companion, Stephen Rutland, after nineteen years of captivity.

The two men were able to reach Arippu, a Dutch fort on the northwest coast of the island.

The Dutch treated Knox generously and transported him to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies, from where he was able to return home on an English vessel, the Caesar, arriving back in London in September 1680.

During the voyage, Knox had written the manuscript of An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, an account of his experiences on Ceylon, which is published in 1681.

The book is accompanied by engravings showing the inhabitants, their customs and agricultural techniques.

It attracts widespread interest and makes Knox internationally famous, influencing Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as well as sparking a friendship with Robert Hooke of the Royal Society.

One of the earliest and most detailed European accounts of life on Ceylon, it is today seen as an invaluable record of the island in the seventeenth century.

The Indian subcontinent had had indirect relations with Europe by both overland caravans and maritime routes, dating back to the fifth century BCE.

The lucrative spice trade with India had been mainly in the hands of Arab merchants.

By the fifteenth century, European traders had come to believe that the commissions they had to pay the Arabs were prohibitively high and therefore sent out fleets in search of new trade routes to India.

The arrival of the Europeans in the last quarter of the fifteenth century marked a great turning point in the history of the subcontinent.

The dynamics of the history of the subcontinent come to be shaped chiefly by the Europeans' political and trade relations with India as India is swept into the vortex of Western power politics.

The arrival of the Europeans generally coincides with the gradual decline of Mughal power, and the subcontinent becomes an arena of struggle not only between Europeans and the indigenous rulers but also among the Europeans.

Siraj ud Daulah, governor of Bengal, unwisely provokes a military confrontation with the British at Plassey in 1757.

He is defeated by Robert Clive, an adventurous young official of the British East India Company.

Clive's victory is consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar on the Ganges, where he defeats the Mughal emperor.

As a result, the British East India Company is granted the title of diwan (collector of the revenue) in the areas of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, making it the supreme, but not titular, governing power.

Henceforth the British will govern Bengal and from here extend their rule to all of India.

Vasco da Gama had led the first documented European expedition to India, sailing into Calicut on the southwest coast in 1498.

In 1510 the Portuguese had captured Goa, which has become the seat of their activity

Under Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque, Portugal had successfully challenged Arab power in the Indian Ocean and dominated the sea routes for a century.

Jesuits had come to "convert, to converse, and to record" observations of India.

The Protestant countries of the Netherlands and England, upset by the Portuguese monopoly, form private trading companies at the turn of the seventeenth century to challenge the Portuguese.

Mughal officials permit  the new carriers of India's considerable export trade to establish trading posts (factories) in India.

The Dutch East India Company concentrates mainly on the spice trade from present-day Indonesia.

Britain's East India Company carries on trade with India.

The French East India Company also sets up factories.

 

Robert Clive's troops defeat the Mughal forces at Buxar (Baksar, west of Patna in Bihar) in 1765, and the Mughal emperor (Shah Alam, r. 1759-1806) confers on the company administrative rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, a region of roughly twenty-five million people with an annual revenue of forty million rupees.

The imperial grant virtually establishes the company as a sovereign power, and Clive becomes the first British governor of Bengal.

Besides the presence of the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French, there are two lesser but noteworthy colonial groups.

Danish entrepreneurs establish themselves at several ports on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, in the vicinity of Calcutta and inland at Patna between 1695 and 1740.

Austrian enterprises are set up in the 1720s on the vicinity of Surat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat.

As with the other non-British enterprises, the Danish and Austrian enclaves are taken over by the British between 1765 and 1815.

The Mughal emperor in 1717, Farrukh-siyar (r. 1713-19), gives the British—who by now have already established themselves in the south and the west—a grant of thirty-eight villages near Calcutta, acknowledging their importance to the continuity of international trade in the Bengal economy.

As do the Dutch and the French, the British bring silver bullion and copper to pay for transactions, helping the smooth functioning of the Mughal revenue system and increasing the benefits to local artisans and traders.

The fortified warehouses of the British bring extraterritorial status, which enables them to administer their own civil and criminal laws and offered numerous employment opportunities as well as asylum to foreigners and Indians.

The British factories successfully compete with their rivals as their size and population grow.

The original clusters of fishing villages (Madras and Calcutta) or series of islands (Bombay) become headquarters of the British administrative zones, or presidencies as they generally come to be known.

The factories and their immediate environs, known as the White-town, represent the actual and symbolic preeminence of the British—in terms of their political power—as well as their cultural values and social practices; meanwhile, their Indian collaborators live in the Black-town, separated from the factories by several kilometers.