DBQ Essay: What Drove The Sugar Trade

2. Sugarcane plantations – The sugarcane plantation was a plantation that had sugar as its main crop. Sugarcane became a popular crop throughout the world. These plantations were all across Brazil. The European workers died quickly while working in the plantations from different diseases.

In Hawaii, in the 1800s, King Kamehameha the fourth and the planters needed to import foreign workers to make more sugar. Plantation life in Hawaii in the 1800s was not easy. They had harsh living conditions, working conditions were difficult to work in, and racial differences made it unfair. Living condition was harsh because those who worked on the plantation had to live in a 10 foot-square room with a kitchen according to source #1. In source #1

The economy relied on what slaves grew.

The more slaves the more sugar that could be produced was the idea that most plantation owners had. These slaves were owned by wealthy British men. The rich men had enough money to buy lots of slaves and produce lots of sugar. This brings back the main idea because none of the sugar could have been produced without any of the labor. Labor is the beginning to this story of the Sugar Trade and without that chapter, it would be incomplete.

In the 1600's, when tobacco was founded by John Rolfe, tobacco became the main source of income for most of the colonists. The industrial prosperity was totally based on the amount of tabbacco produced each year. The growing of tobacco, needed a large amount of land, with a large stable workforce. The increased demand for a large, stable workforce combined with the availability of African slaves, led to the use of slavery in the colonies. Slaves owners can asks their slaves to do anything, and sometimes they force their slaves to do hard, painful, and dangerous works.

The New World was built on the backs of slaves who would do different jobs for small rewards or otherwise be punished or sentenced to death. This new territory was inhabited by several different European peoples including the Spanish Empire in Hispaniola and English immigrants at Chesapeake Bay, their roles in slavery differed in terms of who they acquired to work and the type of work they assigned to their help. In the 1500’s, the Spanish people had several sugar mills in the Caribbean land they named Hispaniola. Because of diseases brought over by the Spanish people, the indigenous population of this land was wiping out and therefor they needed to bring over more people to work for them.

The plantations previously constructed by the Spaniards produced an abundant amount of coffee and sugar that was exporting to Europe. They produced 60% of Europe 's sugar and 40% of its coffee which allowed St. Domingue to become one of the wealthiest colonies in the world. Essentially homing more slaves than any other segregated county an exception to

Imagine if the cotton businesses had no slaves the Southerners would have to create their own factories, for example, if they did have to create their own industry, they would have to sell all their slaves and that’s one of the last things that they wanted to do. If the South had no slaves, they would have to do everything all by themselves. According to page 242 it says " planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories, most wealthy southerners had their wealth invested in land and slaves. Planters would have had to sell slaves to raise the money to build factories. Most wealthy southerners were unwilling to do this.

Millions of years ago, the Earth was divided into two the Old and New Worlds. This lasted for quite some time, so long that different evolutions began. For example, on one side of the Atlantic rattlesnakes developed, but on the other, vipers grew. The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of non-native plants, animals, and diseases brought to the Americas from Europe and vice versa. This all happened after 1492.

Slavery first came to the colonies in 1619. When the first Africa slave arrived in Jamestown. Jamestown found success in mass producing tobacco. In order to increase production, slaves were imported in to met the demand. Slavery was not very popular in the beginning because of the cost.

The transatlantic slave trade was a brutal and inhumane enterprise, where millions of Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas under brutal conditions (Bailyn 140). The conditions for enslaved Africans on English sugar plantations were often horrific, with harsh punishments and long working hours in hot and humid conditions (Fisher 47). Nonetheless, it is undeniable that the use of enslaved labor was a crucial factor in the success of the English colonies in the Caribbean. The use of slave labor allowed the English to cultivate crops such as sugar cane at a much lower cost, and thus gain a competitive advantage in the global market (Fisher 34). Without the labor of enslaved Africans, it is unlikely that the English would have been able to establish such profitable and successful sugar

The invention of the cotton gin created a market for cotton that the planters could hardly supply without cheap labor. Almost every available acre was brought under cotton culture as the small farmers were driven into the West. The demand for slaves to work the fields was enormous. This led to the development of the plantation system of the Far South and Southwest, where masters were near constantly extending their holdings of lands and slaves. Efforts to form new slave states were common, most prominent of these efforts was that to annex Texas.

The French and Indian War left England with a debt of £130,000,000. To help pay off the debt Britain set up taxes, to collect money, on frequently used products by the colonists. The Molasses Act put a six pence tax on every gallon of molasses. The colonists thought this was a lot of money to pay so they did everything to avoid it. This act was not really enforced and the colonists did not really obey this act.

In the 17th centuries early settlers came to America in the hope of taking their custom and traditions forward. However, the environment and geography brought changes to their lifestyles. Soon, people became to alter their pattern of living in the different colonies. During the 17th and 18th centuries, geography and the environment profoundly influenced the economic development and overall health and success of the two regions called the Chesapeake and the New England, which began to form in the early 17th century.

Their lives were short and they were expected to live from five to six years, which was considered a large profit to the slave owners, as they were able to purchase new and healthier slaves with no financial loss. They were also heavily mistreated; being forced to work for hours under the scorching sun, with terrible living conditions and poor nutrition. Slaves were seen as barely human, and the loss of one only meant the loss of the slave owner’s financial gain. Sugar was produced by the masses, but it cost thousands of human lives. Overall, although both colonies benefited and profited from slavery, the numbers and the demand in Meso-America greatly surpassed those from North America’s, and resulted in slave trade being banned much later in those