10. As the major European powers of Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands looked for ways to exploit the fertile lands of the New World , they looked to Africa for a steady supply of labor . Soon, African slaves had become absolutely vital to the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, cotton, and rice plantations. As European demand for sugar began to increase, plantations began to spring up throughout Brazil and the Caribbean. Sugar cultivation created a huge demand for slave labor from Africa. Many plantations produced additional crops such as indigo, rice, tobacco, and coffee.
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Editor's Notes
Triangular Trade The triangular trade demonstrates how people were reduced to commodities to be sold. Goods such as metal, cloth, beads and guns went from Britain to Africa, enslaved Africans went to America and the Caribbean, and raw products such as sugar, tobacco and cotton came back to Britain. Show the picture of the sugar nippers. One of the reasons the trade lasted for so long was because it was incredibly profitable. The British appeared to have an insatiable appetite for luxury goods from the Caribbean, especially sugar and this demand fuelled supply. Before the twentieth century, sugar came in cones from which chunks would be nipped off and used to sweeten the bitter taste of coffee, chocolate and tea. What people consumed in one part of the world altered forever the lives of those from other parts of the world.
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