Introduction: Sugar that changed world history, following its bittersweet story.

Chapter 1: A Cup of Tea, a Spoonful of Sugar Changed the World

An Empire in a Sri Lankan Teacup | Tea Time in Britain: Beginning with a Portuguese Princess | Sugar Cane Crosses the Atlantic | Columbus and Sugar Cane

Chapter 2: Sweet Temptation Across Civilizations

Islamic Civilization and the Darkness of the West | The Crusades Encounter the "Sweet Reed" | Where Did Sugar Come From in the Beginning?

Chapter 3: Plantations and the Tears of Black Slaves

Plantations, the Heart of the Colonial Economy | Black Africans Dragged to Sugarcane Fields | Britain's Pirate King and Jamaica's Land Heroes | The Miserable Lives of Black Slaves | A Horrifying Record from a Slave Overseer

Chapter 4: A Black Slave Community Built Together Under the Whip

Black Africans Rise from Slaves to Warriors | Black Warriors Who Fought Empire | Two Nations on One Island: The Story of Hispaniola

Chapter 5 The First Black Republic Founded in America

The One-Armed Leader Who Became Immortal | The Haitian Revolution, Began with Voodoo Rituals | Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Birth of the Republic of Haiti | The 'Sweet Root' Chosen by Napoleon

Chapter 6: Brazil, the Land of Sugar and Gold

The Beginning of the Portuguese Colonial Model, Madeira | Pedro Alvarez Cabral and the Unknown Land | The Birth of Brazil, the Sugar Kingdom | The Expansion of Brazil's Colonial Economy and the Barbaric Exploitation of Labor | Bandeira, the Slave Hunter | How the Dutch Stolen Brazil | The Dutch Colonial Governor-General, Called the Brazilian | The Gold Rush that Shook Brazil | Minas Gerais, the Land of Gold

Chapter 7: Cuba, the Island of Sugarcane, Rum, Cigars, and Romance

The Land of the Sugar Bowl | The Smoky Dry Grass That Captivated Columbus | The Cuban Spirit in Cigar Smoke and Rum | The Flavor of Bacardi Rum That Captivated the World | Dreaming of a World Without Discrimination | Cuban Independence, the Fall of Spain, and the Rise of the United States

Chapter 8: America's Ambition Nurtured by Sugarcane Fields

Before the Stars and Stripes, There Was Sugar | The Treaty of Paris and the Birth of the United States | The Mississippi River: The Lifeline of a New Independent Nation | How Louisiana Became the Heart of America's Sugar Industry | Napoleon's Sale of Louisiana and the Beginning of a 'God-given Destiny' | What the Tragedy of America's Cotton Fields Created

Chapter 9: Hawaii, Sugar, and Us

The Sugar Road, Crossing the Pacific to Hawaii | A New Land in America Created by Sugar | How Koreans Came to the Hawaiian Sugarcane Fields | The Beginning of Korean Immigration History | Korean Youths Who Willingly Sacrificed Their Lives for Their Country | The 'Picture Bride' Who Came to Hawaii | From the Island of Sugar Barons to the Island Beloved by the World

The sweet temptation of sugar that fueled imperialism

During the Age of Exploration, which began in the late 15th century, European powers, including Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands, competed to expand their influence across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
Historical adventurers like Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama also appeared around the same time.
Their life-threatening voyage is often portrayed in later generations as a romantic adventure, but in reality, it was not something that could be undertaken simply out of a sense of adventure or heroism.
At the time, long-distance navigation was impossible without the full support of the state, so the great voyages led and sponsored by the great powers had a clear purpose: conquering the New World and exploiting its resources.
The Sugar Wars interestingly reveals that at the heart of it all was the desire for sugar.

Sugarcane was a crop that could only be grown in hot and humid tropical climates, so production was impossible in Europe.
Accordingly, several European countries established colonies and large-scale plantations in places with climates suitable for sugarcane cultivation, such as the African coast, Caribbean islands, and the American continent.
For example, Portugal made Madeira and Brazil the bases of its sugar industry, Spain the Canary Islands, France the island of Hispaniola, and Britain the bases of Jamaica and Barbados.
Based on plantations in the colonies, the sugar industry grew by leaps and bounds, and by the 19th century, 90 percent of Europe's sugar demand was met by Caribbean islands. (p. 23) The New World gradually transformed into a "sugar base" that satisfied Europeans' desire for sugar.


"The Sugar Wars" organically links the colonization process of Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Brazil to the history of the sugar industry, and specifically reveals the scars of colonial exploitation by European powers.
Europeans not only threatened the natives and made them practically slaves on their plantations, but also ruthlessly destroyed their own history and culture under the pretext of exploring the interior.
In addition, the natives had no immunity to the pathogens introduced from Europe, so they had no choice but to die helplessly.
Traces of this tragedy can also be seen in the demographic makeup of modern Brazil.
Today, Brazil has a population of whites and mixed race people, each making up more than 40 percent of the total population, while indigenous people make up less than 1 percent.
A few hundred years ago, Brazil was home to an indigenous population comparable to that of mainland Portugal, but now little remains of them.
The greed of the great powers for sugar has even changed the demographic composition of a country.

Meanwhile, Brazil was also a stage for fierce competition among major powers to take over sugar production areas.
The Netherlands, a latecomer to the Age of Exploration, secured maritime hegemony through the spice trade and then attempted to drive out the Portuguese from the Pernambuco region in northern Brazil and establish rule there for a time.
Johan Maurice, who took office as governor during this period, highly valued Brazil's potential and focused on developing the capital, Recife. The infrastructure built at the time was so advanced that it surprised even the Netherlands.
Even today, traces of the urban planning created by Johann Maurice remain in Recife.
Brazil, the only Portuguese-speaking country in South America, yet with traces of Dutch colonial rule still visible throughout the country, is a vivid example of imperial greed and colonial exploitation surrounding sugar.

The worst atrocity in human history, perpetrated in a sugarcane field.

The development of sugarcane plantations and the sugar industry in the colonies led to a large influx of black Africans.
From growing and harvesting sugarcane to boiling and refining the sugarcane juice to turning it into sugar, the entire process requires a huge amount of labor.
Initially, they tried to mobilize the indigenous people to meet this demand, but this soon reached its limits, and Europeans turned their attention to the African continent.
Afterwards, the slave trade began to flourish to provide the labor needed for the sugar industry.


The exploitation of black slaves in the sugar industry was one of the most horrific acts of violence committed by human beings against human beings.
It is estimated that approximately 12.5 million black Africans crossed the Atlantic Ocean on slave ships between 1519 and 1867.
Many of them died during the voyage from disease, starvation, and abuse, and about 10.7 million people ultimately arrived in the Caribbean and the Americas.
There has never been a forced migration on a greater scale in human history. (p. 55) These slaves were subjected to extreme abuse by white plantation owners and overseers, and the extent of the cruelty is evident in the account left by Thomas Thistlewood, a slave overseer on a plantation in Jamaica.
Records of a slave having his ear cut off and being whipped dozens of times for inviting a fellow slave over for a meal, or of another slave being forced to defecate in the mouth of a slave caught secretly eating sugar cane, reveal the extent of the cruelty. (p. 67) 『Sugar Wars』 vividly shows a cross-section of the brutal abuse of black slaves that was prevalent throughout Western society at the time, including Thistlewood's account, and makes us deeply reflect on a history that humanity must never repeat.

Meanwhile, the constant exploitation and violence on the plantations inflamed the anger of black slaves, and sparks of resistance ignited throughout the Caribbean islands.
Among them, Haitian independence is a very unique and important scene in the history of slave liberation.
Haiti, a region known as 'Saint-Domingue' during the French colonial period, was once the world's largest sugar producer.
The slaves here, unable to endure the harsh labor, ran away, formed a community called the 'Maroons', and fought a war of independence against the colonial authorities for about 13 years.
However, Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the black people during this period, receives an offer of alliance from Spain while fighting fiercely against the French army.
Spain intended to use Toussaint's resistance to drive the French from the island and take over Saint-Domingue, then a key base for the sugar industry.


However, the French revolutionary commissioner, Sontona, who judged that this would turn the tide of the war, suddenly declared the emancipation of the slaves.
The situation changed abruptly, and the suddenly liberated black resistance found itself at a critical juncture.
They had to decide whether to believe the French declaration of liberation or to continue the union with Spain as promised.
At a crossroads, Toussaint and the black resistance fighters joined hands with the French army, which had long exploited them.
As a result, not only Spain but also the British, who joined the war late, were driven out of the island of Hispaniola, and the Republic of Haiti, the world's first independent black slave state, was born.

In this way, Haitian independence was the result of several historical contradictions: the exploitation of black slaves and resistance against it, the greed of the great powers surrounding sugar production areas, the strategic emancipation of slaves in Songtona, and the choice of black resistance forces to ally with the white French who had oppressed them.
Beyond the case of Haiti, "The Sugar War" tells a variety of stories about how the fate of black slaves in other sugar-producing regions was influenced by the interests of European powers, making us reflect on how much blood and tears the desire for sugar brought about.

Our Footsteps Engraved on the 'World History of Sugar'

The sugar industry was one of the main drivers of mass population migration and diaspora.
The migration of black slaves to Jamaica, which was a major sugar producing area along with Saint-Domingue, clearly demonstrates this.
In Jamaica, two Maroon Wars against British colonial authorities took place, during which about 600 black people were forcibly relocated by the British to Nova Scotia in North America.
For black people who had lived in tropical climates their entire lives, the winters in Nova Scotia were so harsh that many of them eventually lost their lives there.
Those who barely survived petitioned to be sent back to Africa, their 'ancestral land', and were relocated to Sierra Leone in West Africa.
The irony is that some of those who moved to Sierra Leone then ended up in Jamaica again as contract workers.
Their descendants settled in Jamaica and have continued to live there to this day.
The arduous journey of Jamaican black slaves, forced by Britain to migrate from Africa to the Caribbean, North America, and back to the Caribbean, vividly reveals the tragic side of the diaspora brought about by the sugar industry.


Hawaii, which emerged as another major stage for the sugar industry under American influence in the early to mid-20th century, was the site of the first official Korean immigration, and is not only a site of the sugar-driven diaspora but also deeply connected to our history.
Beginning in the late 19th century, large-scale sugarcane plantations began to be established in Hawaii. The plantation owners, most of whom were white Americans, turned to Asia in search of cheap labor after the abolition of slavery, as they could no longer employ black slaves.
Afterwards, following Japan and China, Korea also began accepting labor immigrants, and in 1902, with the permission of Emperor Gojong, Korean immigration to Hawaii began.

Immigrants, like black slaves, had to endure inhumane working conditions and discriminatory treatment on plantations.
Some immigrants who could not endure this returned to their homeland, but most survived tenaciously and gradually became rooted in Hawaiian society.
The 'photo marriage' system that emerged during this process is very interesting.
Photo marriage is a marriage practiced among Koreans in Hawaii from 1910 to 1924.
A Korean man in Hawaii would send his photo to a Korean woman through a matchmaker, and if the woman liked the man in the photo, she would send her own photo to Hawaii, and the marriage would be arranged.
As the picture marriage system allowed Korean women to legally come to Hawaii as "picture brides," Koreans gradually began to settle in Hawaii in family units, and later, from these families, they also immigrated to farms in Mexico and Cuba.

The lives of Koreans who settled in Hawaii were no easier than those of their homeland, which had been taken away.
However, even in these harsh conditions, Koreans in Hawaii formed a community, supported each other, and willingly contributed some of the money they earned through sweat and tears to the independence movement.
Korean immigrants to the Americas, who suffered hardships no less than those of colonial Koreans in a distant land, were passionate independence activists who carried on the cause of national salvation.
Jang In-hwan and Jeon Myeong-un, who are well known for the 'Stevens sniper incident', were also young men who worked as sugarcane workers in Hawaii before moving to San Francisco and working for Korean independence.
The two men announced the Korean people's will for independence to the world by assassinating pro-Japanese diplomat Stevens in 1908.
This incident had a great impact on the Korean-American community as well as on independence movement groups scattered throughout the country and abroad, and later became a trigger for the anti-Japanese movement.


The first Korean immigration to Hawaii and the subsequent history of Koreans in the Americas are important intersections where the global history of sugar and the history of the Korean people, past and present, meet.
"Sugar Wars" serves as a poignant reminder that the lives of Korean immigrants in Hawaii, cultivated on sugarcane farms, were a clear mark left by our own efforts amidst the maelstrom of world history swept by imperialism and colonial exploitation.