history

Hist112B: Fall 2012
Essay #1
October 11, 2012
Austin Cramer
Energy shifts from Sugar and the Trade
When it comes to describing why relative concentration of energy shifts from Asia and Africa to the North Atlantic region, resulting in the emergence of more complex societies in the North Atlantic world, I am going to focus on the two factors I feel are most important forming this occurrence. In this paper, I am going to discuss the importance of these factors and what they did history over time. The two most important factors that helped this energy shift from Asia/Africa to the North Atlantic region resulting in the emergence of more complex societies in the North Atlantic World are in my opinion sugar and the Atlantic slave trade. Throughout history sugar and the Atlatntic slave trade have been two things that have been brought to attention many times. Sugar has become something in all countries today that has been used to produce a lot of wholesome products and beverages. Other things sugar has to offer include fuel and livestock feed. The other important factor is the Atlantic slave trade. Although the Atlantic slave trade is not something people look at as something good that has happened, it not only diversified the world and also helped with major farming and industrial production. I will start to examine and explain why I chose these two factors as the most important to the shifts of energy towards the emergences of more complex societies. The first of the two factors, Sugar, is a sweet flavored substance that we use as food. It is an organic chemical that creates carbohydrates. Sugar is created by many different variety of plants. The two most common or influential are sugar cane and sugar beet, thought sugar cane is by far the most influential of the two. Sugar was a form of food but served not only that importance in our history. Sugar helped shape the world and where we are today as societies. From the writings of Sweetness and Power, I took a quote I felt brought to the eye the importance of sugar and where it has come through history at that time. “Sugar surrendered its place as luxury and rarity and became the first-mass produced exotic necessity of a proletarian working class.” (Sidney Mintz, 46). This quotes gives you the idea that sugar grew from a luxury item to become a mass production necessity for a proletarian working class. Proletarian can be described as a member of the industrial working class. Once sugar is mass produced through the sugar plantations formations this now becomes a highly produced product and that means prices drop as does the rarity so now most people could afford to have it. The second factor playing a major role in the concentration of energy shifts from Asia and Africa to the North Atlantic region is the Atlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade brought us slaves to the Americas. By receiving work from the slaves, new trades and different work was created. With new trades were flourishing which meant that the economy was flourishing as well. The Atlantic slave trade was mainly the trade of African people to the Americas to work plantations. The slave trade brought discrimination, as well as, deaths of many Africans. The Atlantic slave trade was organized to supply workers to put into the labor force. It would start with sugar cane being shipped to Europe, and then cloth and other goods may have been sent to Africa, these would be exchanged on the western coasts for slaves.
With sugar becoming popular because of formations of sugar plantations, this all occurred because of the Atlantic slave trade. The slave trade was a big reason for this boom in sugar plantations because the slaves would work the sugar plantations producing more and more sugar. Many things came from sugar. First expansion occurred in the 18th century because sugar plantations formed in the West Indies and North and South America. With plantations forming this was the first time that sugar was available to all people. Over a full century you could see how sugar had changed. Sugar was just a luxurious treat mainly for the wealthy but just in one century it evolved to becoming a necessity for all. Sugar had effects on the trade routes. Sugar gave us so much more than most people could imagine. Sugar influenced the formation of colonies. Sugar also brought to us the term of indentured labor. Looking at the overall picture, you can see that sugar gave the people a new migration. This migration caused for major ethnic mixing from the people who settled over those last two centuries. With the Atlantic slave trade, plantations brought in slaves to work their crops. This was the cheapest solution for the plantations. Slaves trade in Africa was mainly in the West Indies. While later on down the road we got into indentured servants who would work off debts to their owners for exchange of labor. Indentured labor trade from Asia was mainly in India.
There were many effects that came from the Atlantic slave trade. People of Africa were being captured from their own homes to be sold into the slave trade. The captured slaves were being purchased by the slave ship owners to then be sold to wealthy people who needed them to work for them in and on their plantations. The slave ship owners would then bring the slaves back to South American and North America. According to The World’s of History by author Kevin Reilly, The slaves were being sold at an auction both in Africa and also later when they arrived in South America and North America. After the slaves were sold the owners worked them on their plantations to help produce heavy production. Other slaves worked as house servants and were also hired out to other places.(Reilly, 623) As a result auctioning and shipping the slaves of the Atlantic trade, countries became more diverse. Africans slaves were sent to work in North and South America. This all is very important to how our diversity stands to this day. Also many things may not of happened in history if it weren’t for the Atlantic slave trade. This also showed us how we traded and set down stepping-stones for us to trade today with other countries. Also, crop manufacturing flourished from the expansions of plantations. The slave trade even though it is not a good thing, it gave push to the future African-Americans to fight for their equal rights because of how they were treated when the Atlantic slave trade began. These are some of the major effects that the Atlantic slave trade had on these shifts.
Sugar brought to us social and economic changes. Wars were even started over sugar controlling nations. These are important to our history. The Atlantic slave trade spread our ethnics and mixed them around the world. Also, it showed us the importance of supply and demand. Both of these ideas have made huge impacts on our world’s history. Sugar can be used in many ways we thought were going to be impossible and the Atlantic slave trade, although looked upon as bad, has made our way for production on both the farms and in the factories.
In conclusion, I believe sugar as well as the Atlantic slave trade were two crucial important factors that help explain why the relative concentration of energy shifts from Asia and Africa to the North Atlantic region. Due to these factors, there was the result in the emergence of more complex societies in the North Atlantic world. This is just a good case of how something as small as sugar can greatly impact our world and societies. History builds off of everything we create as well as off of everything that we have previously learned. If you imagine the comparison of the 18th century when sugar was a luxury item and over time in the 19th century it became a necessity, but when you compare it to our 20th century it has clearly changed even more. Every place you look there is sugar, sugar is in a lot of things, not only food and beverages, and you can basically get it anywhere. Also, I feel history is a great tool we use to correct ourselves from mistakes created before in history. I feel this is a great example where the Atlantic slave trade was embraced back then and the impact was huge. It was a negative factor in our history, in most people’s eyes, but it helped shape our history today. We abolished slavery and realized it wasn’t right that because a man is different than the white man that he should be treated worse than us. We are all people and deserve to live a free and equal life. The Atlantic slave trade allowed for us to change and allow everyday African Americans to be free and live a free life. Looking back just a few hundred years ago Africans and also African Americans could not live free at all in not only our country, but also other countries around the world. Everything is a part of history and shapes us in some form whether it being the smallest bit possible to the largest possible. Hence, sugar and the Atlantic slave trade were, in my opinion, the two most important factors to explain the concentration of energy shifts from Asia and Africa to the North Atlantic region.