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Sweetness and Power

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Fernando Revelo La Rotta
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4K views127 pages

Sweetness and Power

Uploaded by

Fernando Revelo La Rotta
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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SIDNEY W. MINTZ SWEETNESS AND POWER THE PLACE OF SUGAR IN MODERN HISTORY PENGUIN BOOKS x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS to Elise LeCompte, who surely worked as hard on the book as 1 did, before emigrating to graduate school. Marge Collignoa typed the final draft with skill and celery. Dr. Susan Rosales Nelson ‘worked swiftly and efficiently in preparing the index. ‘To the librarians who showed me unfailing kindness atthe Van Pelt Library (University of Pennsylvania), the British Library, the Wellcome Institute of Medicine Library, the Firestone Library (Princeton University), the Enoch Pratt Free Public Library of Bal- timore, and, above all, the Milton S, Eisenhower Library (The Johns Hopkins University), I owe more than I can say. A special salute to the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department of the Eisenhower Library, whose industry, dedication, and efficiency are unmatched. Many good friends read and criticized portions of the manuscript Acknowledgments. ix at different points in its preparation. Among them I must mention iy colleague Professor Ashraf Ghani, as well as Dr. Sidney Cantor, List of Mlustrations xii Professor Frederick Damon, Professor Stanley Engerman, Dr. Scott ‘Guggenheim, Dr. Hans Medick, and Professor Richard Price. Rich Introduction xv and detailed critical commentary on the entire manuscript came from Mr. Gerald Hagelberg, Professor Carol Heim, Mr. Keith 1 + Food, Sociality, and Sugar 3 McClelland, Professor Rebecca J. Scot, Professor Kenneth Sharpe, and Dr. William C, Sturtevant. I have not been able to deal ade- 2.4 Production 19 {quately with all oftheir criticisms and suggestions, but thir help improved the text more than they will probably recognize. Special enlightenment was volunteered by a veteran member of the sugar tramp fraternity, Mr. George Greenwood, for which I am most 4» Power grateful. [ also want to thank the members of my department— faculty, staff, and students. Their encouragement and support during 5 + Eating and Being four first decade together have given new meaning to the word collegiality. My editos, Elisabeth Sifton, awed me with her skill and Bibliography 215 fired me with her enthusiasm; I thank her warmly. If anyone suffered more with this book than I it was my spouse, Notes 228 Jacqueline, to whom itis dedicated with all of my love and grati- ‘ade—a late present for our twentieth anniversary. Sidney W. Minte 3.* Consumption 74 ast 187 Index 261 List of Illustrations Fromtspiece: Europe Supported by Africa and America, by William Blake (1796) Following page 78: A uniformed slave cutting sugar cane (1722) A late-nineteenth-century depiction of tropical plants, including imagined sugar cane ‘An eatly-nineteenth-century slave gang hocing and planting canes in Antigua A sixteenth-century sugar plantation in Spanish Santo Domingo A seventeenth-century sugar mill in the French Antilles ‘Nineteenth-century sugar boiling-houses ‘A sugar mill in operation today The Sugar Hogshead, by E. T. Partis (1846) ‘Nineteenth-century French desserts Following page 184: ‘Miniature sugar figures ‘Mexican funereal confections Sugar mold commemorating the silver jubilee of George V of Great Britain (1935) Model of the British royal state coach (1977) Model of the cathedral at Amiens (2 views) (1977) ‘Model of a French sailing ship ‘Model of a medieval castle (1977) Caesar's Thumb French sugar baker sculpcuring a nude Introduction his book has an odd history. Though it was completed only after a recent and sustained period of writing, much of it grew fom skimmings and impressions collected over many years of read~ ing and research, Because of its subject matter, it isa figurative sort ‘of homecoming, For nearly the whole of my professional life, {have ‘been studying the history of the Caribbean region and of those tropical products, mainly agricultural, that were associated with its “development” since the European conquest. Not all such products originated in the New World; and of course none of them, even those that were indigenous, became important in world trade until the late fifteenth century. Because they were produced thereafter for Europeans and North Americans, | became interested in how those Europeans and North Americans became consumers. Follow. ing production to where and when it became consumption is what Tmean by coming home. ‘Most people in the Caribbean region, descendants ofthe aborig- inal Amerind population and of setlers who came from Europe, Africa, and Asia, have been ural and agriculeural. Working among, them usually means working in the countryside; getting interested in them means getting interested in what they produce by thei labor. Because I worked among these people—learning what they were like, what their lives were made into by the conditions they lived uunder—I inevitably wanted to know more about sugar and rum and coffee and chocolate. Caribbean people have always been en- tangled with a wider world, for the region has, since 1492, been ‘caught up in skeins of imperial control, spun in Amsterdam, Lon-

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