Sugar Industry In Latin America

From Columbus’ discovery of the Americas to about 1800, colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese redesigned the trade and social systems. Industry had both positive and negative effects within Latin America, its imperial powers of Spain and Portugal, and the African slave trading system. Although the sugar industry jumpstarted the economy of Latin America and helped to set up the system of global relations that we have today, it left the region at a disadvantage in trade and had lasting negative effects on the social standings and interactions of Latin America. When sugar was recognized as a luxury item by the English, Spain and Portugal sought out to create sugar plantations. However, the Iberian royals felt as though they were too …show more content…
Although the high amount of profit could have been seen as a positive aspect, it did not outweigh the negatives. This trade of goods between Latin America, their imperial powers, and other areas was the beginning of trade as we have it today, but the trade in the colonial period did not run as smoothly as it does in current day. Due to sugar being a primary product and there being no flux in its value, its economy was prone to struggle when inflation from boom and bust cycles occurred (Murphy, 1/12/2017). Another factor that made it difficult to diversify the economy was the amount of labor needed for the mass sugar production. This led to imperial authorities setting up trading posts in Africa, but because the sugar industry was so labor intensive and dependent on slaves, imperial leaders didn’t put in much effort into finding people to work in other areas and focused mainly on the sugar industry (Wolfe, 192; Murphy, 1/17/2017). This made it difficult to produce other goods and made the imperial powers jealous of the industrial revolutions in areas like the United States and France (Murphy, 1/25/2017). Their production of only a few primary goods did not get them very far in the global trade system and once areas started to break away from the imperial throne, they became unrecognizable by other countries and therefore lost out on even more trading partners. However, the successes prior to independence of other nations contributed to the learning of how to succeed in global trade leading up to present day. The industrialization period of specialization and the mass production of a single product helped to create the economy and new consumer tastes that we see today (Murphy,