Sugar Changed the World

Aronson and Budhos define the Age of Honey as the era that preceded the Age of Sugar, when most people in the world relied on sweeteners from bee-produced honey, maple trees, or fruits instead of sugar (6). However, they focus on more that people’s diets. The Age of Honey “was a way of living: People ate foods grown near them, did the same work as their parents and ancestors, and owed honor and respect to kings, nobles, those above them” (7). It was also a time when people “valued tradition over change” (70). The Age of Honey came to an end when knowledge of sugar cane became widespread (10). However, the idea that “a man’s job was to be useful, obedient, and content with his lot in life” continued until it was challenged by the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries (73-74).

According to Aronson and Budhos, the Age of Science followed the Age of Sugar and is the era we currently live in. Certain elements of the Age of Sugar, such as plantation farming, still exist in the modern day (117-118). However, the development of cheap alternatives like beet sugar and artificial sweeteners like Splenda brought about the sharp decline of plantation-based sugar production, as cheaper and more effective sweeteners were being developed in laboratories. Aronson and Budhos do not describe any further features of the Age of Science as they do with the Age of Honey and the Age of Sugar. This is probably because the Age of Science is not yet over.

Aronson and Budhos characterize the Age of Sugar as “that combination of enslavement, factories, and global trade” that started with the spread of knowledge of how to refine sugar and the rise of sugar plantations (70). According to Aronson and Budhos, the Age of Sugar included changes in diet, industrialization, slavery, and the “rigid new economy” built on plantation farming (70). Aronson and Budhos also argue that the Age of Sugar contributed to the modern world in positive ways, giving birth to a more diverse and interconnected world. This era was ended by two factors: scientific developments that led to alternatives to cane sugar (113-114, 117) and the growth of workers’ rights and limitations on the power of plantation owners over their workers (113, 118). 

First discovered by the German scientist Andraeas Marggraf in 1747, beet sugar was the first real alternative to cane sugar. It was made from drying beets and mashing them into a powder (113-114). Although Napoleon tried to use beet sugar as an alternative to the English-dominated sugar trade, it took decades for beet sugar to become widespread. Marc Aronson’s ancestor’s discovery of a process for colorizing beet sugar allowed his family to buy their way out of Russian serfdom (116-117). Beet sugar also had broader significance in two ways. First, beet sugar “set an example of modern farming that helped convince Russian nobles that it was time to free their millions of serfs” (116). Second, it helped bring an end to the Age of Sugar: “For beet sugar showed that in order to create that perfect sweetness you did not need slaves, you did not need plantations, in fact you did not even need cane” (117). Beet sugar heralded not only the end of the Age of Sugar, but also the beginning of the Age of Science.

These were songs and dances developed by Africans in sugar colonies. Bomba originated in Puerto Rico, rumba came from sugar workers in Cuba, and Maculelê developed in Brazil. Such dances were a form of resistance in which “people spin, jump, and seem to menace each other, then, just on the beat, click sticks and twirl away. The dances were a way of imitating warfare without actually defying the master” (55). These music and dance cultures developed as a way to defy the plantation owners, but they also represent the ways in which slaves actively transformed their local societies (54-55). 

Cane sugar was, for thousands of years, the only source of sugar. Alternative sources of sugar only became known with the discovery of beet sugar in the 18th century (113-114). Cane sugar originates from the island of New Guinea. Knowledge of how to cultivate it spread from there to India and Polynesia (10-11). Cane sugar is difficult to cultivate and refine; processing it requires intense and specialized labor to bring in the harvests in the necessary 48-hour period. Further, large amounts of land are needed to grow the wood needed to boil the cane sugar (26-29). This demanding process required strict and difficult labor practices, giving rise to the plantation system and the use of slaves and indentured servants.

“Coolies” was a slang term for indentured servants from India (104). Although indentured servitude was difficult and coolies found themselves competing with African ex-slaves for low-paying work, coolies often stayed in the sugar colonies they worked in after their contracts had ended. As a result, they changed the societies and cultures of those colonies (109-111). Although paid for their work, coolies were often mistreated and denied citizenship rights. Advocates like Bechu in Guyana and Mohandas Gandhi in Natal pushed for coolie rights, helping bring an end to the Age of Sugar (112-113, 118-121). 

“Great House” was a term for the houses built by plantation owners, usually on high hills. The houses were large and luxurious. However, the owners usually did not live in the houses year-round; instead, “as soon as a sugar planter made enough money, he took his family and moved back to Europe” (58). While they were gone, the running of the plantations was entrusted to overseers. The authors refer to this practice to illustrate how detached from their own plantations the owners were (57-58); their habit of returning to their home countries also explains how plantation owners were able to have a lot of influence over the government of England (74-77).

This type of song was developed by Japanese migrant workers on the sugar plantations of Hawaii. The term comes from a combination of Japanese and indigenous Hawaiian words: the Hawaiian word holehole (“stripping leaves”) and the Japanese word bushi (“song”). As the authors explain, “Some of the songs were funny; some sexy; some […] remind us of […] the terrible days of sugar Hell” (98). Like jazz in Louisiana (94-95) and rumba in Cuba (54-55), this is one of several examples Aronson and Budhos offer of slaves and migrant workers forming new cultures in their adopted countries (97-99). 

After slavery began to be outlawed, plantation owners resorted to indentured servants. Many of these servants were from India. Unlike slaves, indentured servants are technically “free” and are paid a wage. They typically worked under a contract for a number of years. However, workers were often deceived by recruiters and were exploited or abused (101-102, 105-110, 118-121). The authors present indentured servitude as only a modest improvement over slavery: “Indenture was not exactly slavery, but it was not exactly freedom, either” (108).

Maroon was a term for an escaped slave. In Brazil, maroons, along with Native Americans and white slaves, established their own nation, Palmares, that lasted from 1600 to 1695 (56). Palmares serves as an example of how slaves successfully resisted the plantation owners, and it is another case of slaves taking an active role in their own history.

As plantation owners usually lived in Europe, the running of plantations in the colonies was entrusted to overseers. These overseers were often poor Europeans who came to the colonies looking for a better life. Overseers exercised absolute power over slaves, and they deliberately terrorized slaves to discourage them from attempting to escape or start revolts. Aronson and Budhos see the power and cruelty of the overseers as a major part of why life as a slave on the plantations was a form of Hell (57-63).

Plantations were developed to address the difficulties of harvesting and refining sugar (26-29). Unlike traditional farms, plantations only produced one product for trade, rather than various foods to eat or sell to others. They were first used to cultivate sugar in Muslim countries but became widely used by Christian European countries in the Mediterranean and later South America. Because plantations required hard and heavily regulated labor, slaves worked on them. First, Russian slaves and prisoners of war were used. After Europeans began to colonize the Americas, African slaves were brought to the sugar plantations (27-29).