Why Is Sugar Important To Slavery

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Recommended: Role of slavery during colonial america

Audiah Goodson
Dr. Gaitors
His 2303
October 3, 2017

When discussing the Atlantic world, it is impossible to not to discuss the commodities of sugar. In this paper, I will argue how gold and sugar was were two of the main important commodities and how they lead to slavery. The pursuit of commodities largely shaped European commercial aggression in this period. Gold and sugar were not the only commodities that had an effect on trade, but they were the most expensive to come by. People became enslaved because Europeans needed workers for their sugar plantations and their gold mines. The intersection of southern Europeans’ quest for commodities and the labor to help produce them brought about the annexation of Atlantic islands and …show more content…

Sugar set up many different relationships between the Europeans and the rest of the upcoming new world. The group activity we did in class, when we all got into trading groups and each group had their own commodity to sale, at the time no one wanted sugar. All of the groups either was looking for gold, or iron and some needed salt. Sugar became one of the top selling commodities Sugar is one of the reasons the triangle slave trade, got started and became so big. Along with gold, the growing of sugar was in such high demand. With the high demand of sugar, was the need for workers. With the slave trade, many different types of people were enslaved, including the indigenous people, Africans, and the Spanish. More than half of the enslaved people, were of Spanish descent. Among the institutions that Europeans developed in support of their commercial enterprises, nothing had greater affect then that of the people that was involved in the planation system to produce sugar. For a time captives from regional wars, including the crusaders, met the demand for labor on some sugar estates. Venetians on Cyprus may have been the first to recognize the efficacy of slave labor for sugar production and to establish what would become a colonial model for slave based, market oriented sugar production. When discussing the Atlantic World and the significance of it, you can not go over the way sugar came …show more content…

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