The secret of cane sugar was kept a closely guarded secret whilst the finished product was exported. When the Arab peoples in the seventh century AD invaded Persia in AD, they found sugar cane being grown and learnt how sugar was made. As their expansion continued they established sugar production in other lands that they conquered including North Africa and Spain.
Sugar was only discovered by western Europeans as a result of the Crusades in the 11th century AD and the first sugar was recorded in England in The subsequent centuries saw a major expansion of western European trade with the East, including the importation of sugar.
At this time, it was regarded as very much a luxury. The need for labour was met by the transatlantic slave trade, which involved 12,, people being shipped from Africa to the Americas between and , for the purpose of facilitating the cultivation of sugarcane. To amplify the problem, coffee, chocolate and tea started being transported to Europe, increasing the demand for sugar and therefore the need for labour, fuelling the abominable slave trade.
Britain and the USA abolished slavery when the overproduction of sugar started to make the practice less profitable. Brazil was the last nation to abolish the use of slaves on plantations in Sugar naturally spread across South America, and soon, due to its flat terrain and tropical conditions, Cuba rose to become the largest producer of sugarcane in the world.
The Cubans adopted modern milling methods, using watermills, steam engines, and vacuum pans. This increased productivity and helped Cuba achieve a rapid production rate. While all the commotion about new technologies and the despicable slave trade was happening across the pond, Andrea s. Margraff discovered that sugar can also be derived from beet root. The sugar beet industry boomed during the Napoleonic Wars, however as the wars finished, the cheap, slavery-sourced sugar from the Caribbean was regrettably imported throughout Europe once again.
Sugar beet made it to America in , and commercial beet production began in The sugar beet industry then expanded throughout the 20 th century. During this period, sugar production increased and prices fell. To combat this, sugar producers used scale of production to deliver greater efficiency. The group begin acquiring more companies and become the American Sugar Refining Company.
By , after the creation of their Domino Sugar brand, the company was responsible for the majority of US production. Studies undertaken in concerning the relation between sugar and diabetes ignited discussions about alternative sweeteners. Sugar still represents a significant health concern globally. The cry out for non-artificial and healthy sweeteners is loud and pertinent, yet there is no non-artificial substitute that can carry quite the same flavour as sugar.
Similarly, artificial alternatives do not carry the same health benefits that sugar was first cultivated for. Many European doctors learn of the medicinal uses for sugar from Arab texts. Under Arab rule, Egyptians master the refining process and become known for making the purest, whitest sugar.
When the soldiers return home, they bring sugar with them, sparking widespread demand across Europe. Venice had been trading with the Muslim world prior to the Crusades, which gave them a fast inroad to dominate the sugar trade in the Mediterranean for almost half a century.
Export back to Spain is up and running by , though, when the islands become mostly deforested, the sugar industry falters.
Portuguese growers make technological advances in sugar production: a new mill design that could be powered by animals, water, or even wind, and a new method for refining sugar that allows them to operate on a larger scale. Brazilian sugar production eventually dominates the industry. Tabernaemontanus c. As a powder it is good for the eyes, as a smoke it is good for the common cold, as flour sprinkled on wounds it heals them.
With milk and alum it serves to clear wine. Sugar water alone, also with cinnamon, pomegranate and quince juice, is good for a cough and a fever.
Sugar wine with cinnamon gives vigor to old people, especially sugar syrup with rose water which is recommended by Arnaldus Villanovanus. Sugar candy has all these powers to higher degree. By the late 16th century, Brazil out-produces all of the New World colonies and the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean sugar industry collapses. Their arrival drastically increases sugar consumption, making sugar more popular than alcohol ever did, and increasing demand—with lower prices—means a greater reliance on slavery. During the 17th century alone, over half a million African slaves are shipped to Brazil and other New World colonies to work on sugar plantations. Abolitionists boycott slave-grown sugar, and the movement increases the demand for slave-free sugar grown in India. American abolitionists also try to avoid Caribbean-grown sugar, turning instead to the maple sugar industry.
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