History Of Sugar -- The Indian's Revenge

It is thought that cane sugar was first used by man in Polynesia from where it spread to India. In 510 BC the Emperor Darius of what was then Persia invaded India where he found "the reed which gives honey without bees". The secret of cane sugar, as with many other of man's discoveries, was kept a closely guarded secret whilst the finished product was exported for a rich profit.

It was the major expansion of the Arab peoples in the seventh century AD that led to a breaking of the secret. When they invaded Persia in 642 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 11^th Century AD. Crusaders returning home talked of this "new spice" and how pleasant it was. The first sugar was recorded in England in 1099. The subsequent centuries saw a major expansion of western European trade with the East, including the importation of sugar. It is recorded, for instance, that sugar was available in London at "two shillings a pound" in 1319 AD. This equates to about US$100 per kilo at today's prices so it was very much a luxury.

In the 15^th century AD, European sugar was refined in Venice, confirmation that even then when quantities were small, it was difficult to transport sugar as a food grade product. In the same century, Columbus sailed to the Americas, the "New World". It is recorded that in 1493 he took sugar cane plants to grow in the Caribbean. The climate there was so advantageous for the growth of the cane that an industry was quickly established.

[Karl Note:  What this history omits is the fact that sugar was available in Europe, and England, yes, but it was extremely expensive.  There was certainly no large consumption of sugar in the 1400's.

But, what Columbus did was to open the slave trade to land into the Caribbean islands, where they cultivated and grew sugar taken from the American Indians.  The climate in these Caribbean islands was ideal.  

If you visit many of these islands, even today, you find the old sugar plantations from the days of Columbus.

NOW!  Sugar became available in large quantities and became extremely cheap.

So, it was because of the white man's theft of America, from the American Indians, that the phrase of "Indian's Revenge" becomes clear.  The white man stole the entire continent from the Indians, but the Indians gave virtually all of our modern diseases back to the white man -- in the form of cheap sugar.

Sugar is probably the very dramatic change in the health of European society -- towards the "modern diseases" that did not exist prior to the introduction of cheap sugar in England and Europe.  The sugar was relatively cheap in 1500, got cheaper, and even by 1750 it was "expensive" but nothing close to what it had been previously.

Note, also, that even though it would be most efficient to refine the large mass of cane in the area where it was grown, these Europeans brought the cane back to England where it was refined.  They did NOT want the slaves, or other Islanders to learn skills that could lead them toward freedom and independence.]

By 1750 there were 120 sugar refineries operating in Britain. Their combined output was only 30,000 tons per annum. At this stage sugar was still a luxury and vast profits were made to the extent that sugar was called "white gold". Governments recognised the vast profits to be made from sugar and taxed it highly. In Britain for instance, sugar tax in 1781 totalled £326,000, a figure that had grown by 1815 to £3,000,000. This situation was to stay until 1874 when the British government, under Prime Minister Gladstone, abolished the tax and brought sugar prices within the means of the ordinary citizen.

[Karl Note:  So, perhaps we can blame Prime Minister Gladstone for the modern diseases caused by cheap sugar?]

Sugar beet was first identified as a source of sugar in 1747. No doubt the vested interests in the cane sugar plantations made sure that it stayed as no more than a curiosity, a situation that prevailed until the Napoleonic wars at the start of the 19^th century when Britain blockaded sugar imports to continental Europe. By 1880 sugar beet had replaced sugar cane as the main source of sugar on continental Europe. Those same vested interests probably delayed the introduction of beet sugar to England until the First World War when Britain's sugar imports were threatened.

[Karl Note:  By this time it is obvious that sugar had become an addictive drug -- just as the English deliberately sent opium into China, we see that the English government wanted its citizenry to have cheap sugar, and all the consequent dulling of the intellect it brought with it.]

Today's modern sugar industry is still beset with government interference at many levels and throughout the world. The overall pattern can be seen by investigating the mid 1990s' position in the interactive map on the Introduction page. Annual consumption is now running at about 120 million tons and is expanding at a rate of about 2 million tons per annum. The European Union, Brazil and India are the top three producers and together account for some 40% of the annual production. However most sugar is consumed within the country of production and only approximately 25% is traded internationally.

One of the most important examples of governmental actions is within the European Union where sugar prices are so heavily subsidised that over 5 million tons of white beet sugar have to be exported annually and yet a million tons of raw cane sugar are imported from former colonies. This latter activity is a form of overseas aid which is also practised by the USA. The EU's over-production and subsequent dumping has now been subjected to GATT requirements which should see a substantial cut-back in production over the next few years.