A Colonial Vision Gone Awry

The original blueprint for England’s American colonies envisioned an orderly system where “undesirables” from the mother country would redeem themselves through agricultural labor while “improving” untamed lands. As articulated by Sir Francis Wyatt in 1622, this plan involved ruthlessly displacing Native populations to secure “free land” rather than coexistence. The colonies would supply raw materials to fuel England’s manufacturing, creating a perfectly balanced imperial economy.

Tobacco initially fulfilled this role in Virginia and Maryland, but when prices collapsed in the 1680s, the system faltered. About 50,000 settlers survived by diversifying into indigo and wheat, though tobacco would later rebound. Meanwhile, Europe’s growing taste for exotic stimulants – coffee from the Ottoman Empire and chocolate from Spanish America – created new opportunities. Dutch merchants skillfully marketed these commodities, with London’s first coffeehouses appearing by 1650.

The British Tea Obsession

No historical explanation fully accounts for Britain’s singular passion for tea, which emerged unexpectedly in the mid-17th century. Thomas Garway began selling Chinese tea in his Exchange Alley coffeehouse in 1657, promoting it as a miracle drug that could cure everything from scurvy to lethargy. By the early 1700s, tea had spread from aristocratic parlors to merchant and artisan households, becoming a domestic ritual complete with specialized porcelain and social etiquette.

The East India Company imported nearly £1 million worth of Chinese tea annually by the 1730s, selling it at 400% markup. This beverage revolution transformed British diets, replacing traditional breakfasts of beer and bread with sweetened tea, bread, and dairy. Cookbooks like Hannah Glasse’s 1747 Art of Cookery assumed sugar’s universal availability, featuring recipes requiring pounds of refined sugar for cakes, creams, and preserves.

Sugar’s Dark Atlantic Passage

Medieval Europe had known sugar as a rare luxury, but Portuguese planters discovered ideal growing conditions in Brazil’s tropical climate. However, sugarcane’s labor-intensive processing – requiring rapid harvesting, crushing, and boiling – demanded an unprecedented workforce. European indentured servants and Native Americans proved unsuitable, unable to withstand the brutal conditions.

The solution emerged from existing Portuguese slave trading networks in West Africa. Between 1650-1807, British ships transported 3-4 million Africans across the Atlantic as part of the triangular trade. The Middle Passage became a floating hell where 10-20% of captives perished from disease, dehydration, or suicide. Survivors faced dehumanizing inspections and violent “scrambles” where planters rushed to claim the strongest laborers.

The Plantation Machine

Barbados became the model sugar colony, with its ideal climate and isolation from Spanish threats. By the 1650s, a 200-acre plantation with 100 slaves could yield £2000 annually. The island’s white population created a self-governing “republic” that brutally enforced slave codes while maintaining English legal traditions. Quakers like George Fox meekly suggested kind treatment of slaves, but few challenged the system’s fundamentals.

Slave life followed relentless cycles: children joined work gangs by age 5, while the prime “great gang” labored 70-80 hour weeks. Processing accidents were common, with boiling houses frequently scalding workers and mills crushing limbs. Low birth rates – due to harsh conditions, malnutrition, and disease – meant constant replenishment through the slave trade was economically preferable to natural growth.

The Human Cost of Sweetness

Violence sustained the system. Overseers routinely whipped slaves, while women faced sexual exploitation alongside field labor. Diarist Thomas Thistlewood recorded 100 sexual encounters with his enslaved mistress Phibbah in 1765 alone, plus 55 other assaults on 23 women. Despite some skilled slaves achieving slightly better conditions as artisans, most endured short, brutal lives to satisfy Europe’s sweet tooth.

This Faustian bargain transformed global economics, creating fortunes that fueled Britain’s rise while establishing racial slavery’s enduring legacy. As poet William Cowper ironically noted, moral qualms about the trade inevitably yielded to the demand for sugar and rum – the bittersweet foundation of Atlantic empire.