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Chapter Reference: The Encounter; Colonial Crucible; Postcolonial Blues; Neocolonialism
Unquestionably, sugar is the mother of all Latin America's export commodities. Sugarcane was being harvested by indigenous slaves on Brazilian plantations already in the 1540s, and by African slaves already in the 1580s. Sugarcane was cultivated by the Dutch during their occupation of part of Brazil in the 1600s, then transferred by them to the Caribbean, where it sank deep roots. Caribbean locations like Cuba, Haiti, and Barbados became hotspots of world sugar production. Sugar plantations could eventually be found everywhere in Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, although the main centers of production remained Brazil and the Caribbean. Even apart from slavery, which invariably accompanied sugar production in the colonial period, sugar plantations have never been nice places to work. Because of its high capital requirements, sugar production seems to create, and then reproduce, extremes of wealth and poverty in the lands where it takes hold. Students can approach the history of sugar in Latin America from many angles. Slave culture that developed on sugar plantations, forms of resistance to the hard labor of sugar cultivation, and the markets and consumers that drove the sugar trade during the colonial period are just a few possible avenues.
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- Where were the primary markets for sugar, and what spurred consumers to develop a taste for sugar? What economic networks developed thanks to Latin American sugar production?
- What were the living conditions of workers on sugar plantations, and how did these vary from place to place? How did sugar plantations compare with other kinds?
- Can you characterize economic, demographic, and social patterns in societies where sugar cultivation became the dominant economic activity?
Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
Ayala, César J. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish
Caribbean, 1898—1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
** Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York:
Viking, 1985.
A classic overview of sugar cultivation.
** Paquette, Robert. Sugar is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the
Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan
University Press, 1988.
A study of the 1844 rebellion, the book also offers an engaging account about plantation life, conditions, and what Cuba was like during the period.
** Pérez, Jr., Louis A., ed. Slaves, Sugar, and Colonial Society: Travel Accounts of Cuba,
1801—1899. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1992
A collection of travel writings that allow students to read firsthand accounts of Cuban slavery.
Scarano, Francisco A. Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce,
1800—1850. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
A scholarly treatment of sugar cultivation in Puerto Rico, situating the plantation economy in the larger context of the history of sugar in the Caribbean.
** Schwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia,
1550—1835. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Students interested in the history of sugar in Brazil will want to consult this detailed study.
________, ed. Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic
World, 1450—1680. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
A collection of essays that update Mintz's classic work (above).
Sims Taylor, Kit. Sugar and the Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil, 1500—1970.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1978.
Other Resources:
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