Sugarcane In America

Sugar in America Many people have a sweet tooth, and historically, people have craved sweet foods. Before sugarcane, the only sweetening product was honey. It was not until the early 1600s that sugar made its way to the US. We were a new country, and the United States did not have much knowledge of it compared to other countries. “White Gold”, as British colonists called it, “was one of the first "cash crops" of early colonial America.” It was valuable and not easily accessible for everyone. Unfortunately, it was a key in the slave trade. It was not necessarily the sole reason, but sugarcane was hard to farm, and required cheap labor. This began in the early 16th-century and brought millions of Africans to the Americas. Ships carried the

It was not until the sugar culture migrated from western Europe to the West Indies, and later to America. At first, it was only grown on a small scale, in the warmer areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama. John Randolph, of Louisiana, “established one of first successful sugar plantations in 1841, and became the largest producer of sugar in the United States.” The conditions there were not perfect, but they were good enough for cultivation. Sugar cultivation was expensive to get started. Plantations that could adapt to conditions and acquire the most capital, were successful. Americans also found that sugar could be used to preserve fruits and vegetables. “Preservation with the use of honey or sugar was well known to the earliest cultures.” It helped preserve some foods for up to a year thanks to canning. Its ability to aid in preservation made sugar much more

It grew abundantly and was a major source of income for many plantations, especially in the south. The United States was experiencing high labor costs, this led to the industry 's change to mechanical harvesting in the early 1990s. Many advances during that time helped increase the demand of sugar. It eventually and is still one of the world’s most powerful commodities. These advances include new technology, globalization, and influences of the state and its people. “In the 1700s, the average American ate just four pounds of sugar a year, and in 2012, the average American consumed over 168 pounds of sugar a year.”5 Sugar consumption still continues to