Originating from New Guinea, the tall, bamboo-like grass known as sugarcane is processed to produce sugar. The history of sugarcane use dates back over 4,000 years to New Guinea, where it is believed to have first been domesticated. From there, sugarcane cultivation spread to Southeast Asia and India. Ancient Indian texts from 1500 BCE mention "śarkarā," which referred to the crude form of sugar extracted from sugarcane. India became the birthplace of crystallized sugar around 500 BCE, significantly advancing the use of sugarcane from a simple source of sweetness to a more refined product.
By the 7th century CE, Indian knowledge of sugarcane and sugar-making spread through trade routes to Persia and later to the Islamic world. The Arab expansion in the 8th and 9th centuries facilitated the cultivation of sugarcane in regions such as Egypt and Spain, transforming sugar into a valuable commodity in Europe. In the 15th century, sugarcane made its way to the New World, following the voyages of Christopher Columbus. The Caribbean, Brazil, and parts of Central America became major producers of sugarcane, thanks to their tropical climates.
Sugarcane became closely linked to the transatlantic slave trade in the early 16th century, following the European colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. This connection was driven by the high labor demands of sugar production and the rise of plantation economies. In the early 1500s, enslaved Africans were brought to work on Portuguese sugar plantations on the island of São Tomé, off the coast of West Africa. This model was then exported to the Portuguese colony of Brazil, which became a major sugar producer by the mid-1500s.
The links between slavery and sugarcane developed into a notorious triangular trade involving Britain. Ships departed from Bristol, Liverpool, and other ports in England carrying trade goods, such as beads, cloth, and guns, to West Africa. These goods were exchanged for enslaved Africans, who were then transported to the Caribbean, South America, and American colonies to work on plantations. The vessels returned to England with sugar, tobacco, and cotton—the produce of the enslaved workforce—with Greenock and Glasgow being major importers of these goods.
During the 1800s, some plantation owners, investors, government officials, and consumers considered slave labor necessary to ensure the availability of sugar. James Ewing, a founding member of the pro-slavery lobby group the Glasgow West India Association, was among those who defended this system. Established in 1807, the organization was part of a network that worked tirelessly to protect the interests of the merchant class and justify slavery. They wrote articles predicting the economic havoc that ending slavery would wreak on the UK economy, underpinning their arguments with racist slurs. They lobbied tirelessly to retain slavery and, when abolition became inevitable, to secure compensation for plantation owners and enslavers.
The availability of processed sugar, made possible by slavery, led to changes in taste and the use of ingredients in food and drink production during the 18th and 19th centuries. Ingredients such as rhubarb, licorice, and ginger, which were previously considered medicinal in the West, began to be used more widely.
Images:
Young and mature sugarcane crop (c) CSIRO, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Sugarcane garden in the highlands inland from Rigo in Southeast Papua New Guinea, 1928, United States Department of Agriculture (c) Smithsonian Institution.
