Sugar

Definition

Sugar is a sweet, crystalline substance that is extracted from sugarcane or sugar beets. In the context of the transatlantic slave trade, sugar refers to the large-scale production and exportation of this commodity from European colonies in the Americas.

Related terms

Plantation: Large agricultural estates where cash crops like sugarcane were grown on a massive scale using enslaved labor.

Triangular Trade: The system of trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, which involved transporting goods such as sugar, slaves, and manufactured goods across these three regions.

Middle Passage: The horrific journey that enslaved Africans endured while being transported across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as laborers on plantations in the Americas.