The techniques of sugar production in all of the American colonies were essentially the same, as the classic and roughly contemporaneous descriptions of Père Labat for the French Antilles, Richard Ligon for Barbados, and André João Antonil for Brazil make clear. But details differed in response to regional distinctions and local conditions. In Brazil, the techniques of sugar making and the structure of production defined the colony's social and economic structure for almost one hundred years to about 1650 and thereafter exercised considerable influence in sugar-producing regions such as Bahia and Pernambuco, despite the growth of other economic activities. The foundation on which the Brazilian colony rested was the relationship of masters to slaves, and this was inherent in the relations of production engendered by the plantation economy. To understand the nature of sugar production, then, is to perceive the needs and desires of the class that controlled the essential property, lands, and slaves and to grasp the conditions and constraints under which those who produced the sugar labored.