In 1493, Columbus brought sugar across the Atlantic to the West Indies. Although commercial shipments of sugar had arrived in England since 1317, in the late 1600s and 1700s sugar growing had a firm grasp in the Caribbean. Ideal cultivating conditions, raving consumers, and a profit-centered market were the driving forces behind the sugar trade. Newly discovered and settled lands in the western hemisphere satisfied all sugar’s growing needs. Most English commoners had no idea what sugar was, let alone what it tasted like. The mass production of sugar shocked the English market as production rose from 4.6lbs to 16.2lbs over seventy years. As competition increased, mercantilism came into play as companies looked to cut any expenses to increase profit margins, resulting in the mass use of slaves.
The New World was perfectly qualified for growing sugar cane. The West Indies had the precise climate and precipitation levels for the crop, and the soil was full of nutrients specific to the crop’s needs. When the triangular slave trade was established, nearly free workers came from Africa for the labor-intensive plant. Raw goods from the colonies were sent to England to be manufactured, which in turn were used to purchase slaves from Africa. These manufactured goods could be anything from a “cheap sort of firearms”(Campbell) to “glass beads”(Campbell), all of low quality and not really an expense (costing around £14 per slave) to those purchasing slaves. Slaves could be sold for £32 in the British Caribbean, a profit of about £18 per slave. (compares to almost $4,000 in the US today) The convenient conditions in the New World, along with the flourishing triangular slave trade helped drive the sugar trade forward.
Europeans were overall unfamiliar with sugar before it was produced in their colonies. When it was introduced along with addictive goods, it was found that sugar