Sugarcane was an important element of the Columbian Exchange and unfortunately resulted in stimulating the American slave trade. Sugar cane is native to Polynesia, wheresmall pieces were often found washed up on foreign shores where they were said to flourish. This was the explanation of its movement to China, India, and elsewhere (Hobhouse 44). Refined sugar originated (1432) near modern Funchal, Portugal. Vineyards eventually would replace the sugar crops because the Europeans had destroyed most of the islands woodlands necessary to grow sugar cane. Sugar was introduced into the Caribbean soon after the arrival of Columbus in 1492 (51).
By 1530, there may have been more than a dozen sugar plantations in the West Indies, using imported animal, imported machinery, imported workers in an agricultural development in a new continent an ocean away from the market (52). The reason for this new agricultural growth was because the tropical climate was perfect for growing sugar cane and this would justify the high cost of settlement. The Caribbean settlers planted every kind of tropical plant. Sugar crops are salable while other crops were riskier. Sugar is extremely addictive so the demand for it grew over a period of time (52).
Before Columbus carried a few pieces of sugar cane to the Caribbean, sugar was a luxury. Most European got it from their apothecaries to help make medicine taste better. But by the middle of the 16th century, tropical American forests were giving way to vast colonies of cane-growing plantations. Europe was hooked on sugar (Columbian 27).
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In 1514, Bartolome Las Casas was given a piece of land in the Spanish colony of Cuba. The natives that were conquered would rather die than be a slave. Las Casas suggested using African slaves instead of the natives since they were known to work willingly, and this was the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade (Hobhouse 57). By 1548, apparently Las Casas had changed his mind about slavery, and started a campaign in Spain against the very thing he had started (57). Las Casas was soon forgotten, and it would be two hundred years before slavery and the slave trade were as vigorously questioned and then successfully attacked. By then sugar was the most important commodity traded in the world (58). In 1600, Spain was the only European country producing sugar in quantity (55).
The small island of Barbados, an English colony, had a ideal climate for growing sugar cane. In the decade of 1660-1670 Barbados was the greatest sugar producer in the trade. That is, until all the timber had been cut down and the land became over exhausted. It was the boredom and hard work of sugar cultivation which made slavery inevitable. Cane planting was done by clearing a pitinto which the young plant or stem cuttings were dibbled To save manual labor by ploughing was said to be impossible.
If digging these pits in the hot sun was hard work, too much for whites, then harvesting the cane, crushing it, and boiling the sugar was out of the questionthe heat was fierce, since there was no means of cooling the sugarhouse. Temperatures of 140F were recorded, and even at night, the temperature near the vat would be well over 120F. Humidity would also be very high and therefore exhausting. It was a job for blacks, not whites, slaves, or free men (60). Sugar slavery was the first time in history that one race had been uniquely selected for a servile role (63).
After about 1680, one of the quickest ways to a fortune was in the triangular trade (67). The triangular trade was the passage from Europe to Africa, from Africa to the Americas and back to Europe (68). But the Middle Passage was brutal, killing 10-20% of those slaves on board. The adult men were chained together, forced to lie in their own waste for up to three months (68). The stink, the imprisonment, the fear of the unknown, the inability to communicate, the strange white men, all these factors must have added to the natural horror of the sea voyage and help to explain why a number died en route, however skillful the captain, however considerate and competent the crew, however easy the passage (68). The slave trade became a huge industry.
The sugar addiction in 1801, wherever it existed, killed proportionately more people than the drug trade does today. The drug trade differs, of course, in that it kills those hooked on the product, while the sugar trade killed mostly slaves (63). The introduction of coffee, tea, and cocoa into Europe provided the well off with an alternative to alcohol for the first time in history. But all three were crude, often bitter, and unconsumable, it was said, without sugar (64). This increased the need for sugar trade significantly.
The sugar cane brought to the Americas as a result of the Columbian exchange had a huge impact on the Caribbean and on the slave trade. Sugar crops were easy to grow in this tropical environment. The exclusive use of African-Negroes made it the first time that a single race would be uniquely selected for a servile role (63). Since sugar is addictive, it was in high demand. The high demand of sugar helped to make the slave industry as big as it was.
