Michael Phelps

Period 7

What Drove the Sugar Trade? Or, “1317: A Sugar Odyssey”

“Here you are, sir, main level please.” And as the hogshead was wheeled down
the ramp, on a particularly cool day in 1317, a Trojan horse entered Liverpool. From the
moment it was first tasted this seemingly innocuous substance infiltrated nearly every
processed food by the modern era; it being sugar. White became the new green as profits
from sugar plantations exploded, and demand continued to build. Sugar’s existence was
self-perpetuating; the more people used sugar the more they came to consume it. Much
like gasoline, this soft white crystal came to influence much more than its own industry
while turning what was once a candle into a cataclysm, slavery. Essentially the furnace
that was the sugar trade was fed by greed, as enormous profits ensued for any investor,
addiction, as the public swarmed for sugar like a drug, and perfect timing, as colonization
and the ease of transportation made off shore sugar plantations capable of becoming self-
sufficient and highly successful. Although not inherently evil, the social injustices
committed for the thirst of sugar can only be attributable to human error.
Sugar barons Charles Long, Robert Hibbert, William Beckford, and John
Gladstone all had fantastic success with their plantations1, but this was in no way luck or
divine intervention; conditions were perfect. New oversea colonies in Jamaica, Barbados,
Saint-Domingue, and Cuba were all ideal for the growth of sugar which their massive
production demonstrated2,3. Luckily, despite the intensive labor required to process sugar
cane Europe had a solution, slavery. Equally important, slaves were fairly cheap to buy,
costing on average 41 pounds in 1768, or roughly just three years salary of a day
laborer4,5. With plantation owners able to profit from the purchase of a slave in just three
years time, for a man who could work twenty to thirty years, eliminated much of the
overhead cost. And so, with free labor, sugar was an extremely profitable venture for
anyone capable of investing.
Put to the fullest possible use, sugar became an increasingly more important
ingredient in the British cuisine, nearly quadrupling in consumption in seventy years6. Of
course, sugar is not eaten on its own, but supplemented in various foods and drinks,
especially drinks. In Europe, as sugar use increased so did coffee, tea, and chocolate7.
And since all four of those products are produced in tropical climates the plantation
system and the institution of slavery increased in frequency. And as their use increased,
so did sugar’s, and so the cycle went.
Because it was seen as a requirement for a successful sugar plantation, slaves
were the backbone of the sugar industry8. Ever since the dawn of civilization slavery has
existed but never as a commercial product until now. Without the Portuguese and their
extended exploration of Africa, European colonization in the New World may never have
existed on the scale it was. And as it was an age of exploration, seafaring vessels were
reliably capable of ocean travel which, without it existing, oversea production would
have been practically impossible, or at the very least not nearly as profitable.
Sugar’s origin and purpose are nothing of a mystery. Its introduction to the
European diet created an insatiable urge for more, and producers were more than happy
to oblige. The ability for one to become absurdly rich as the public was demanding the
sugar were the main catalyst for the success of sugar barons; however, without the
seaworthy ships capable of ocean travel, their efforts would have been largely useless on
a large scale. Its hard to imagine a world without sugar, but it may have very well
happened if not the pieces had fitted together the way they did on one fatefully morning
in 1317.
 Michael Phelps
Period 7
Works Citied

1: Document 7, the entire last box.

2: Document 2, self explanatory.

3: Document 10, under “Tons of Sugar Produced”, the numbers only increased over time.

4: Document 9, first box: “1768 41(pounds)”

5: Document 6, under “Note”, “At 14 pence per day, a day laborer in England in the early
1700s earned about 18(pounds) per year.”

6: Document 5, under “Annual Per Capita Consumption”, 4.6 in 1700, 16.2 in 1770.

7: Document 4, “Sugar as sweetener came to the fore in connection with three other
exotic imports—tea, coffee, and chocolate…”

8: Document 6, “It requires three hundred Slaves”.