Impact Of The Sugar Trade

Michael Narbutt

Mr. Sagistano

AP World History

2/27/15

Sugar Trade Sugar is not only a sweet substance used in coffee, cookies, and many other sweet tasting foods we love to eat and enjoy. It is truly a good that changed the world in many ways all the way back to its roots. In more than one way sugar is a useful and profitable tool, originating all the way back to the early middle middle ages. The sugar trade impacted the the Earth both socially and politically with the use of slaves brought to the Americas by the middle passage and other places. Economically, especially when prices dropped due to new technological improvements and slave abolishment all over the world. Lastly, the sugar trade impacted the world culturally, by leading

Dating all the way back to the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sugar was being sold at jaw dropping prices at that time (Inglis, G. Douglas.). In Venetian and Sicilian regions purveyors sold extremely small amounts of sugar to wealthy elites, such as politicians, at extortionate prices (Inglis, G. Douglas.) This was mainly occurring throughout the sixteenth century (Inglis, G. Douglas.). This helped all vendors of sugar become one of the wealthy elites themselves. It all came to an end for these sellers once sugar was being produced by slave labor in the seventeenth century (Inglis, G. Douglas.) This was the cause of a great decrease from the exorbitant prices and allowed for the small middle class to now be able to buy the sweetener. The price decreased so much as slave labor was the cause for cultivating the crop that eventually not only the wealthy elites and middle class could buy sugar, but also the poor civilians of the land (“Sugar.”). The slave industry continued well into the late nineteenth century, but once it was abolished by all countries (United States being the last) for being immoral the sugar trade industry changed forever. Ultimately, due to the importation of slaves from mainly Africa and the specific sugar production techniques the slaves have learned, it enabled sugar to be the most profitable good in all of America and Europe at the time (“The Sugar Trade…”). This now

It had a large impact on social classes and political views. It greatly affected the economy helping it flourish and grow larger. Finally, it hurt the environment from a cultural standpoint, but also helped the world out in aiding to the end of