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Sugar was first discovered by western Europeans as result of the Crusades in the 11th Century AD. As they returned to England, the Crusaders refered to how wonderful this "new spice" was in written records. In 1099 AD, sugar was first recorded in England.
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After the Portugese conquer the Madeira Islands in the 1420's, they became the leading sugar cane producers in the Canary Islands by 1450.
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In the the 1400's, Spanish and Portuguese sailors were traveling the coast of Africa, searching for a route to Asia. Through their search for an alternative route, they conquered the Canary Islands and the Azores and began building sugar plantations on the islands, with many of them using slave labor.
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Sugar production is rapidly expanding throughout the Caribbean region at this time, with the mills almost exclusivly worked by African slaves. Jamaica later abecomes a major sugar producing region of the British Empire.
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The Code Noir of 1685 established the basic legal principles of French Carribean slave society, but the colonial government left control of the slave population to individual masters. While the Code Noir stated that ex-slaves were equal to other colonists, racial prejudice was still an important means of social control.
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Saint Dominique, on the French side of Hispanola, becomes the world's richest sugar colony.
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54,403: Slavery in French Territory is at its peak in 1790. After 1790, slavery begins its decline to the point it is prohibited in 1794.
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Children of free parents in French sugar colonies are granted the full rights of French citizens, no matter their race/ origin. Slavery is also abolished within the borders of France.
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Saint Dominique, on the French side of Hispanola, was at one time the world's richest sugar colony.
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In 1793, the British places a tax on sugar products not from English Islands, which the colonists choose to ignore.
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326: Slavery in all French Territory has been abolished by this date, marking the sharp decline from over 50,000 slaves arriving five years ago to just under 500 arriving in 1794.
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In the 1800s, Sugar masters from Haiti begin to arrive in Louisiana, making Louisiana a sugar state.
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Napoleon gains control of the Louisiana Territory, the center of North America from Spain with plans to use it to feed and supply his sugar lands.
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