The earliest extensive sugar production was developed in Brazil, across the Atlantic coast. Even though sugar cane was ostensibly established in Brazil in 1516, it was mainly conducted for certain economic purposes, because of the struggle of Europe for economic and legal claims to places in America. The next forty years were crucial in the trading with Brazil that primarily focused on the cultivation of dyewood since the prices and demand for sugar had collapsed in Europe. However, by the sixteenth era, both prices and demand had increased because sugar was substituting honey in various recipes and increasingly became the most favored sweetener in jellies, jams, and other food products. It was in 1550 when sugar turned into a commercial production across the globe. The Portuguese constructed Mills near Sao Vicente and Pernambuco across the Atlantic Coast of the country of Brazil. This production originated from methods established in Madeira in which the owner leased the land to planters in exchange for a percentage of sugar produced.
During the middle part of the seventeenth era, the sugar industry in Brazil started to grow rapidly with financial subsidy from a company, the Dutch East India. The overall sugar production reached 14,000 tons. Nonetheless, as years passed, the sugar production started to shift to Barbados and in West Indies. Brazil suffered stagnation due to increased production costs and reduced yields that negatively impacted sugar production. In addition, the exclusion of the Dutch and the subsequent interruption in trade resulted to the Dutch shifting their focus in the West Indies. Sugar also became part of the Columbian Exchange. It initially started in New Guinea and eventually spread to other regions in the tropics.
Sugar is one of the highly traded commodities during the Atlantic Trade. Originally from Europe, sugar was rare and sold at a costly price. The development of sugarcane production in the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, triggered for a more accessible sugar. During the middle part of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, sugar became a widely used commodity not only in the United States but also in Great Britain. During the late part of the nineteenth century, it became a necessity for all classes in the society.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth eras, European powers developed sugar colonies in the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies. Barbados, St. Kitts, Jamaica, Nevis, and Antigua were among the first sugar islands in Britain. Trinidad and Grenada became an addition during the nineteenth era. Sugar gained dominion in terms of production. There were crops grown all the time; however, following the plantation system becoming full swing, the sugar planters preferred to import the products and to produce them at a local level in order to have greater amount of land area planted with the product. Sugar trade was extremely vital to the development of Britain as an empire and as a trading country. All through the eighteenth era, sugar from England became the most significant import. It was also the motivating factor in a series of trade that developed in the Atlantic. Sugar became a hugely successful form of commodity. Even though the market was greatly unstable, with regular changes from shortage to excess throughout the plantation age, consumption and production increased throughout the era.
Sources
Harreld, Donald D. 'Atlantic Sugar And Antwerp Trade With Germany In The Sixteenth Century'. Journal of Early Modern History 7.1-2 (2003): 148--162. Print.
Lib.umn.edu,. 'The Sugar Trade In The West Indies And Brazil Between 1492 And 1700 | University Of Minnesota Libraries'. N. p., 2014. Web. 28 Jun. 2014.
