England had multiple sugar islands in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, and Antigua, which provided a steady flow of sugar sales; slave labor produced the sugar. By the 1700s, there were more enslaved persons in Barbados than in all the English colonies on the mainland combined. Since Barbados did not have many mountains, the British were able to clear land for sugar cane. Indentured servants were initially sent to Barbados to work in the sugar fields. These indentured servants were treated so poorly that future indentured servants stopped going to Barbados, and there were not enough people to work the fields. This is when the British started bringing in enslaved Africans. For the English planters, reliance on enslaved labor was necessary for them to be able to profit from production of cane-origin sugar for the growing market for sugar in England and elsewhere in Europe.