In 1425, Henry the Navigator equipped the early colonists to Madeira with sugar cane plants from Sicily. By the end of that century, the island was producing substantial volumes of sugar. Meanwhile, Spanish settlers overcame the resistance of indigenous people to take possessions of the Canaries, and they, too, planted sugar cane.
Throughout these Atlantic islands - the Azores, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, MAdeira, Sao Tome and Principe - the conquering European settlers planted sugar cane where it was possible. In some places, they discovered that other crops were more suitable and profitable (wine and wheat in the Azores, for example). But sugar soon proved its worth on Madeira, an uninhabited island which attracted Portuguese settlers to the prospect of land, and which they turned over to wheat and sugar cultivation (with the help from Genoese and Jewish financiers).
Sugar became the island's most lucrative commodity and, by the end of the fifteenth century, Madeira was the West's largest sugar producers. It also employed slave labour from Africa, as well as from the Canary Islands. Most sugar cultivation was in the hands of small cane farmers who sent their cane to be processed in the nearest factory, some of which used the latest water-powered technology. By 1470, Madeira was producing 20,000 arrobas (230 metric tonnes) of sugar; by 1500-1510 (the peak years of local production) that volume had risen to 230,000 arrobas (2.645 metric tonnes) of various kinds of sugar.
This pattern of sugar cultivation in the Canaries was to become familiar in the Americas (though on a vastly different scale). The sugar was cultivated by both male and female slaves - Africans, people of mixed race and slaves from the Canaries (although that was outlawed at the end of the centrury) - and all of this took place on [end of excerpt].
In 1425, Henry the Navigator equipped the early colonists to Madeira with sugar cane plants from Sicily. By the end of that century, the island was producing substantial volumes of sugar. Meanwhile, Spanish settlers overcame the resistance of indigenous people to take possessions of the Canaries, and they, too, planted sugar cane.
Throughout these Atlantic islands - the Azores, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, MAdeira, Sao Tome and Principe - the conquering European settlers planted sugar cane where it was possible. In some places, they discovered that other crops were more suitable and profitable (wine and wheat in the Azores, for example). But sugar soon proved its worth on Madeira, an uninhabited island which attracted Portuguese settlers to the prospect of land, and which they turned over to wheat and sugar cultivation (with the help from Genoese and Jewish financiers).
Sugar became the island's most lucrative commodity and, by the end of the fifteenth century, Madeira was the West's largest sugar producers. It also employed slave labour from Africa, as well as from the Canary Islands. Most sugar cultivation was in the hands of small cane farmers who sent their cane to be processed in the nearest factory, some of which used the latest water-powered technology. By 1470, Madeira was producing 20,000 *arrobas* (230 metric tonnes) of sugar; by 1500-1510 (the peak years of local production) that volume had risen to 230,000 *arrobas* (2.645 metric tonnes) of various kinds of sugar.
This pattern of sugar cultivation in the Canaries was to become familiar in the Americas (though on a vastly different scale). The sugar was cultivated by both male and female slaves - Africans, people of mixed race and slaves from the Canaries (although that was outlawed at the end of the centrury) - and all of this took place on [end of excerpt].
(post is archived)