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Did you know that what used to be a gift to one’s beloved
actually ignited the slave trade….sounds
interesting?
Well,
read on……..
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WHY
SUGAR INDUSTRY FUELED SLAVERY
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History
of sugar manufacture is coupled with the
evolution of colonialism and slavery, the two
insalubrious manifestations of inhumanity. To
begin with, sugar was a minor article of trade,
used predominantly as a spice. But with the
introduction of beverages like tea and coffee,
the demand for sugar touched the sky.
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Sugar processing
demands its workforce to labor for long hours of
incessant toil, as was the case of bonded labor.
The colonialists brought millions of West
Africans to the Caribbean in chains, in slave
ships, between the mid-15th and the
20th centuries. The tarnished “triangular
trade” defined the premature sugar
commerce. Sugar from the Caribbean was
transported to U.K. for refining and use in
distilleries. Textile, firearm, and liquor were
sequentially shipped to West Africa as an
investment for the slave deal. The sullied boat
took its dishonored human consignment to barter
them for additional sugar.
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During harvest,
this was an unremitting process and the slaves
slogged close to death. They inexorably got so
fatigued that fingers or hands were often lost.
The sugar manufacturing process was demanding,
and the slaves lived and exerted in
indescribably thorny circumstances. They spent
an era in the fields, bowed at the waist,
slashing at the harsh stalks with sharp-edged
blades. After harvest, the cane was transported
to the sugar mill to haul out the sap.
Painstaking cooking in witch-type cauldrons that
had to be tended uninterrupted, followed this.
The entire procedure looked-for premeditated
concentration, in view of the fact that
sugarcane juice deteriorates rapidly. After
mining, the juice was decanted into moulds. The
bricks of raw sugar were shipped to British
refineries for refining.
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Sugar
formed the basis of trade between Barbary (Morocco) and England
in the rule of Henry VIII. It is important to realize that the
dishonorable 'slave-trade'
owes its origin to the sugar trade. During the whole of the
eighteenth century it was the cause of many Anglo-French naval wars
in the Caribbean.
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