Short answers, pulled from the story.
Brazil became the first major plantation colony in the Americas in 1532. European powers sought tropical crops to satisfy growing demand back home and shifted focus from gold and silver to agriculture.
Cash crops included cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. Sugar was short supply and high value in Europe while tobacco moved through the region at a rate of about 40 million pounds by the end of the century.
Planters responded by importing indentured servants from Asia after abolition. By the 20th century, the planter class ceased to be politically influential or socially influential in either hemisphere.
French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu introduced coffee to the West Indies in 1720. He transported a seedling from Paris to Martinique and planted it on Mount Pelée before Saint-Domingue supplied half the global market by 1788.
Brazil was the last nation to abolish slavery in 1888. The National Assembly of the First Republic abolished slavery in France on the 4th of February 1794 while William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition with the 1807 Slave Trade Act ending the trade in the British Empire.