Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Sugar is different from honey. It offers a stronger sweet flavor, and like steel or plastic, it had to be invented. In the Age of Sugar, Europeans bought a product made thousands of miles away that was less expensive than the honey from down the road. That was possible only because sugar set people in motion all across the world—millions of them as slaves, in chains; a few in search of their fortunes. A perfect taste made possible by the most brutal labor: That is the dark story of sugar.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.THE AGE OF HONEYThere was a time before sugar, when those white grains that melt on your tongue did not exist anywhere on earth. Historians speak of the Iron Age, the Bronze Age—metals that were used in weapons and tools. But we could just as well speak of the first several thousand years of human history as the Age of Honey.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Sugar is different from honey. It offers a stronger sweet flavor, and like steel or plastic, it had to be invented. In the Age of Sugar, Europeans bought a product made thousands of miles away that was less expensive than the honey from down the road. That was possible only because sugar set people in motion all across the world—millions of them as slaves, in chains; a few in search of their fortunes. A perfect taste made possible by the most brutal labor: That is the dark story of sugar.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World. My great-grandparents had come from India to Guyana—then British Guiana—in the late nineteenth century to work on the sugar plantations. Sugar was the backbone of the British Empire at that time. The demand was huge, for sugar had gone from being a luxury that only kings could afford to a necessity. Even the poorest of London shopgirls took sugar in their tea. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. But even after they freed their slaves, the sugar plantation owners were desperate to find cheap labor to cut cane and process sugar. So the British owners looked to another part of the empire—India—and recruited thousands of men and women, who were given five-year contracts and a passage back.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Eventually, I visited Guyana to find out the fate of our house. As our car passed old sugar estates, and I saw the palm trees bending against the wide sky, the lush cane growing in thick, shiny rows, the villages, which were really parcels of land surrounding the important estates, I realized that sugar had been the entire reason for this country's existence. Every now and then an old boiling house—where the cane is processed into crystals, molasses, and rum—would show itself on the flat landscape, cropping up like a hulking ghost.
Read the timeline from Sugar Changed the World.1789French Revolution begins with the declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen1791Children of free parents in French sugar colonies are granted the full rights of French Citizens, no matter what their color or origin; slavery abolished within borders of France1792French leaders begin to use the guillotine to execute enemies1793Louis XVI executed; Marie Antoinette executed1794Slavery abolished in all French sugar colonies1799Napoleon takes power in France1800Napoleon gains control of the center of North America—the Louisiana Territory from Spain, plans to use it to feed and supply his sugar islands1802Napoleon makes slavery legal again
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.I wanted to know more about the beguiling Nina, and my cousin had plenty of stories to share. He told me that her grandfather was a Russian serf—a farmer who could be bought and sold by the noble who owned his land. Family legend has it that this serf, a remarkable and intelligent man, helped to change the course of the history of sugar. In the early 1800s, the British controlled most of the sugar plantations of the Caribbean and the sea routes to Europe. As a result, their rivals were desperate to find a new way to create sugar. They turned to beets.We don't know exactly what Nina's grandfather's invention did, but as the story goes, he found a way to give raw beet sugar sparkling hues. People from Russia to the cafés of Vienna could now buy cheap and attractive sugar produced on European soil.Serfs were much like slaves, since they had no choice about where they lived or worked. Yet Nina's grandfather made so much money from his invention that he was able to buy his freedom from his owner. He went on to become a very rich man—so rich, he not only bought a piece of land on the Volga River but married off his daughter to a noble who owned the next stretch of river lands. Together they could form a kind of mini empire, controlling a large swath of this important waterway, and they became the first family in the area to buy an automobile. . . .Age of Science1747Andraeas Marggraf discovers that beet sugar is identical to cane sugar1840sBeets become a major crop in Ukraine1852Indians begin to arrive in Natal to work in sugar1861Czar Alexander II frees Russia’s serfs
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World. A rock drawing in Spain from about 7000 B.C. shows a man who has climbed a hillside, found a crevice holding a hive, and is reaching in to grab the honey. Indeed, a lucky wanderer in just about any part of Europe, Africa, or Asia that wasn’t covered with ice could stumble on a hive and—at the risk of some stings—come away with a treat. (People in the Americas had no bees, so used syrups made from maple trees, agave cactus, or mashed fruits for their sweeteners.) Then someone figured out that you didn't have to be lucky. You could hollow out a log near bees, and they would make it their home. You could "keep" bees—you didn't have to find them.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. But even after they freed their slaves, the sugar plantation owners were desperate to find cheap labor to cut cane and process sugar. So the British owners looked to another part of the empire—India—and recruited thousands of men and women, who were given five-year contracts and a passage back. For a person from India, going overseas was not a simple matter. Once you crossed the "black water" of the surrounding oceans, you were said to have "gone to tapu." You no longer had any place in your village and could not be accepted back until you went through a special ceremony. Leaving India truly meant giving up your home; yet for some—for my family—that was their only chance for a better life.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World. We don't know exactly what Nina's grandfather's invention did, but as the story goes, he found a way to give raw beet sugar sparkling hues. People from Russia to the cafés of Vienna could now buy cheap and attractive sugar produced on European soil.Serfs were much like slaves, since they had no choice about where they lived or worked. Yet Nina's grandfather made so much money from his invention that he was able to buy his freedom from his owner.
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