Duncan !

Nicholas Duncan

Ms. Norton

AP Language

August 20, 2016

Sugar: Cause for Slavery in America

American History is filled with mistakes, blemishes, and blunders. The largest and most

obvious of our mistakes was slavery, which has cost the lives of millions and torn our nation

apart through war and racism. However, this practice began on this continent well before the

United States of America ever existed. Slavery as we know it, the import of African slaves for

labor, began not with the American cotton plantations in the South, but on Spanish sugar

plantations in the Caribbean, and slavery would have been much less accelerated without it.

Sugar made its debut in the New World when Columbus brought sugar cane with him on

his second voyage to the Americas; an act that arguably had the most profound impact on the

shaping of the Americas we know today (Macinnis 31). The sweet tasting, profitable cash crop

had some major drawbacks, the largest of which was difficulty in harvesting. Harvesting the

crop is difficult and requires great technical knowledge to do it well. Once the cane is cut, it must

be processed within 24 hours Production was therefore complex, yet had to be done

quickly (Gibson 91-92). In addition, mills were only able to extract one-half of the juice from

the cane, and so it required twenty tons of cane to produce a single ton of sugar (Macinnis 111).

It is not surprising, then, that slavery was needed. In fact, Sugar and slavery seemed to go hand-

in-hand. Without slaves, there might not have been a sugar industrybut without sugar, there

would not have been as many slaves (Macinnis 36). The result of this, the importing of African
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slaves, did not begin immediately. Instead, many believed that locally-sourcing the natives to

provide the slave labor would be more beneficial. While this practice was logically sound, there

were many factors that the main propagator of this practice, Christopher Columbus, failed to

consider.

Even upon his first encounter, Columbus regarded the native populations to potentially be

good servants good to be ordered about, to work and sow, and do all that may be

necessary (Williams 31). During his third voyage in 1498, he shipped six-hundred Indians, male

and female, back to Spain. The Crown, however, shared different views. The Pope wished to

convert the Indians to Catholicism, and The Sovereigns thereupon issued a royal decree

whereby those Indians who accepted Spanish sovereignty and submitted to it without resistance

were considered subjects of the crown, and as such could not be subjected to slavery (Williams

32). The solution to these conflicting desires was the encomienda systema feudalistic-like

compromise between these desires which turned to be far more brutal than anticipated (Williams

22-23).

The people of whom Columbus described, there is no better nor gentler people in the

world, over 80 years, decreased from a population of 250,000 to less than a thousand (Williams

33). Thus, the labor trade which Columbus hoped would be more valuable than gold of the West

Indies disappeared along with the culture and values of that civilization.

And so, finding the native sources of labor depleted, the Europeans found another source

of slave labor that was already been established: the Africans. The Europeans had brought with

them to the New World many diseases which devastated many native populations. However,

African slaves had a higher survival rate because many were immune to malaria, having already
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been exposed to a strain of it, as well as to yellow fever; another unwelcome arrival in the West

Indies It did not take long for settlers to notice something was different they ascribed the

slaves high survival rate simply to their being African. Planters began to realize that their

money was better spent investing in Africans (Gibson 90). As described by one planter, Of

all things we have occasion for, Negros are the most necessary and the most valuable. And

therefore to have them under a Company and under a Monopoly, whereby their prices are

doubled, cannot be but most grievous to us (Macinnis 113).

Slavery in the Carribean, once established, did not want to leave so quickly. Al least, that

was the wish of those receiving the profits. the business itself was extremely profitable and was

in very high demand. For example, One particular ingenio [a hydraulic mill used for the

extraction of juice from sugar cane] was worth over 50,000 gold ducats, and yielded its owner

an annual income of 6,000 (Williams 27). What drove the trade in sugar, with all its economic

and political effects, was sugar's success as a commodity. Although the market for sugar

fluctuated, demand for sugar rose steadily as consumption increased (Sugar in).

It is an oxymoron that the most valued sweetener in the world could have such a bitter

background. The actions of Columbus and others who introduced sugar to the Americas had

unforeseen consequences that destroyed numerous unique cultures. While slavery was inevitable

in the Caribbean, and gold drew slave labor before sugar did, the mines were quickly exhausted

by the Europeans. These mining operations were not sustainable, and slaves employed in mining

were shifted to the sugar industry as a result. Without sugar, the massive amount of slave trade in

this region of the world would have been greatly delayed, and perhaps we would today have a

greater knowledge of the history of the people whose lives were wasted.
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Works Cited

Boyer, Paul S., et al. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Sixth Edition,

Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Gibson, Carrie. Empires Crossroads: a History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present

Day. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2014.

Macinnis, Peter. Bittersweet: the Story of Sugar. Allen & Unwin, 2002.

Sugar in the Atlantic World. University of Michigan, www.clements.umich.edu/exhibits/online/

sugarexhibit/sugar06.php. Accessed August 8, 2016.

Williams, Eric. From Columbus to Castro: the History of the Caribbean 1492-1969. Harper &

Row, 1970