Sugar Trade

I know, I know. The reason I am posting this essay about the Sugar Trade is because I am behind on my essays, and we wrote about it in Geography. But an essay is an essay, right?

About a year after Christopher Columbus discovered America, sugar was introduced to Europe, which was basically an undiscovered substance to them. Europe, and the rest of the world, would soon explode with the need for sugar. There are many reasons that people desired sugar, including slavery, plantations, and money, but I think the one of the main reason that sugar became such a need for many people all over the world, was the addiction to this sweet substance. We don’t even know it, but we eat sugar every day, and some people think that they could not live without it. As soon as people were introduced to it, the worldwide addiction began.
The average person consumes about three times their body weight in sugar every year. We absolutely love it, as you can see if you read Documents 3-5. Most of us cannot imagine a world without it, but for a very long time, people didn’t know it existed. But once they did discover it, it soon became clear that the passionate need for sugar would soon become a problem. The ground and climate were not ideal for growing cane sugar, and it got very hard to transport. But, when the Europeans found out that the Caribbean was a perfect place to grow it, the plantations and slavery for sugar also took off.
One of the main reasons of the things that we do today, are to make a profit. Our society is founded and formed around currency and pricing. It was the same back in the day, too. While the price of owning a plantation for sugar was expensive, it was more than beneficial. The average sugar plantation of five hundred acres required at least three hundred slaves, a hundred and fifty head of cattle, twenty-five horses, and fifty head of sheep, and that’s not including all of the houses and needs for the slavers and yourself. It was an expensive process, but the need for sugar overcame the price. The cost for slaves was expensive, but they sold for even more. The average slave cost around about 14-16 pounds, but they sold in the British Caribbean for 32-41. People could make a profit with just buying and selling the slaves for their plantation! Not only was it beneficial to make money from slaves, but they also worked at the plantation to help with the sugar, so if you think about it, you couldn’t really lose money owning slaves for your sugar plantations.
As seen from above, there are many reasons that the sugar trade took off, but I would like to restate, in my prospective, the main reason. I think that the need for sugar outweighs everything else. We, as modern Americans cannot live without it; can you imagine what it would have been like when it was discovered? We thrive on the stuff, and they did too. Once the people had sugar, they would soon need it for a lot of things they ate daily. With this need, it was easy for the sugar plantations to sell, which made a profit, which made owning a plantation very popular. So, when you trace everything back to the source, you will find that the main reason is that we are addicted to sugar.
To conclude, there are many reasons that the sugar trade took off. Slavery, plantation ownership, land and climate, and trade philosophy, but I think that the main reason was consumer demand. Sugar really is an addictive substance, and once discovered, people would continue to want it. The need for sugar brought plantations, slaves, and relocation to better places, so when you think of the reasons all this started, you come to one conclusion: Sugar was needed by everyone.