Page 78 - 1619 Project Curriculum

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Domino Sugar’s bringing sugar-cane stalks with him people from Africa; sugar from the

from the Spanish Canary Islands. In
West Indies and Brazil; money and

Europe at that time, refined sugar manufactures from Europe,’’ writes
Chalmette was a luxury product, the back ­ the Harvard historian Walter John­
Refinery

breaking toil and dangerous labor
son in his 1999 book, ‘‘Soul by Soul:

required in its manufacture an Life Inside the Antebellum Slave

in Arabi, insuperable barrier to production Market.’’ ‘‘People were traded along
La.,

the bottom of the triangle; profits

in anything approaching bulk. It

seems reasonable to imagine that it would stick at the top.’’

might have remained so if it weren’t Before French Jesuit priests plant­

for the establishment of an enor ­ ed the first cane stalk near Baronne

mous market in enslaved laborers Street in New Orleans in 1751, sugar
who had no way to opt out of the was already a huge moneymaker in
treacherous work. British New York. By the 1720s, one

of every two ships in the city’s port

For thousands of years, cane was a was either arriving from or heading
heavy and unwieldy crop that had to the Caribbean, importing sugar

to be cut by hand and immediately and enslaved people and exporting

ground to release the juice inside, flour, meat and shipbuilding sup­

lest it spoil within a day or two. Even plies. The trade was so lucrative
before harvest time, rows had to be that Wall Street’s most impressive

dug, stalks planted and plentiful buildings were Trinity Church at

wood chopped as fuel for boiling the one end, facing the Hudson River,

liquid and reducing it to crystals and and the five-story sugar warehouses

molasses. From the earliest traces of on the other, close to the East River

cane domestication on the Pacific and near the busy slave market. New

island of New Guinea 10,000 years York’s enslaved population reached
ago to its island-hopping advance 20 percent, prompting the New York

sits on the edge of the mighty tons imported each year. Americans to ancient India in 350 B.C., sugar General Assembly in 1730 to issue a

Mississippi River, about five miles consume as much as 77.1 pounds was locally consumed and very consolidated slave code, making it

east by way of the river’s bend from of sugar and related sweeteners labor-intensive. It remained little ‘‘unlawful for above three slaves’’ to

the French Quarter, and less than a per person per year, according to more than an exotic spice, medicinal meet on their own, and authorizing

mile down from the Lower Ninth United States Department of Agri ­ glaze or sweetener for elite palates. ‘‘each town’’ to employ ‘‘a common

Ward, where Hurricane Katrina culture data. That’s nearly twice the It was the introduction of sugar whipper for their slaves.’’
and the failed levees destroyed so limit the department recommends, slavery in the New World that In 1795, Étienne de Boré, a New

many black lives. It is North Ameri ­ based on a 2,000-calorie diet. changed everything. ‘‘The true Age Orleans sugar planter, granulated

ca’s largest sugar refinery, making Sugar has been linked in the Unit­ of Sugar had begun — and it was the first sugar crystals in the Loui ­

nearly two billion pounds of sugar ed States to diabetes, obesity and doing more to reshape the world siana Territory. With the advent of

and sugar products annually. Those cancer. If it is killing all of us, it is than any ruler, empire or war had sugar processing locally, sugar plan­

ubiquitous four-pound yellow killing black people faster. Over the ever done,’’ Marc Aronson and Mari ­ tations exploded up and down both

paper bags emblazoned with the last 30 years, the rate of Americans na Budhos write in their 2010 book, banks of the Mississippi River. All
company logo are produced here who are obese or overweight grew ‘‘Sugar Changed the World.’’ Over of this was possible because of the

at a rate of 120 bags a minute, 24 27 percent among all adults, to 71 the four centuries that followed abundantly rich alluvial soil, com­

hours a day, seven days a week percent from 56 percent, according Columbus’s arrival, on the main­ bined with the technical mastery of

during operating season. to the Centers for Disease Control, lands of Central and South Ameri ­ seasoned French and Spanish plant­

The United States makes about with African-Americans overrep­ ca in Mexico, Guyana and Brazil as ers from around the cane-growing

nine million tons of sugar annual ­ resented in the national figures. well as on the sugar islands of the basin of the Gulf and the Caribbean

ly, ranking it sixth in global pro­ During the same period, diabetes West Indies — Cuba, Barbados and — and because of the toil of thou­

duction. The United States sugar rates overall nearly tripled. Among Jamaica, among others — countless sands of enslaved people. More

industry receives as much as $4 black non-Hispanic women, they indigenous lives were destroyed French planters and their enslaved

billion in annual subsidies in the are nearly double those of white and nearly 11 million Africans were expert sugar workers poured into

form of price supports, guaranteed non-Hispanic women, and one and enslaved, just counting those who Louisiana as Toussaint L’Ouverture

crop loans, tariffs and regulated a half times higher for black men survived the Middle Passage. and Jean-Jacques Dessalines led a

imports of foreign sugar, which by than white men. ‘‘White gold’’ drove trade in goods successful revolution to secure Hai ­

some estimates is about half the None of this — the extraordinary and people, fueled the wealth of ti's independence from France.

price per pound of domestic sugar. mass commodification of sugar, its European nations and, for the British Within five decades, Louisiana

Louisiana’s sugar-cane industry is by economic might and outsize impact in particular, shored up the financing planters were producing a quarter

itself worth $3 billion, generating an on the American diet and health — of their North American colonies. of the world’s cane-sugar supply.

estimated 16,400 jobs. was in any way foreordained, or ‘‘There was direct trade among the During her antebellum reign, Queen

A vast majority of that domestic even predictable, when Christopher colonies and between the colonies Sugar bested King Cotton locally,

sugar stays in this country, with Columbus made his second voyage and Europe, but much of the Atlan­ making Louisiana the second-richest

an additional two to three million across the Atlantic Ocean in 1493, tic trade was triangular: enslaved state in per capita wealth. According
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