Hey y’all, Daniel here!
I’m writing this off the coast of Sorong, Indonesia (on the island of Papua) just 2 months after the launch of Chicago Cane Cooperative.
Being so busy with the launch, I kinda just let my wife & friends spearhead the planning, without thinking a ton about it myself. I didn’t intend for it to be the case, but it hit me that this is a fantastic time and place for me to sit down and prep a blog post for CCC about the history of sugarcane.
Why? Well, It’s serendipitous, auspicious, whatever you want to call it, because it’s here in this far flung corner of Southeast Asia, on the island of Papua, that the story of the sugarcane begins.
Thanks for reading!
-Daniel
Sugarcane Early History
Sugarcane was first domesticated in Papua about 6,000 years ago. As one of the largest islands in the world, just north of Australia, Papua is home to ~5% of the world’s biodiversity. With over 20,000 plant species, 800 species of coral, 600 species of fish, and 750 species of birds, it’s no wonder Papua was home to humans who began experimenting with plant and animal domestication.
We’ve known for a long time that domesticating plants and animals was an essential step in building the world we have today. But we sometimes only consider this fact with crops like wheat, corn, and rice because these are the staple crops of western cultures, and our taught history is still centered around western history. But for other parts of the world, different crops were more accessible and thus culturally significant. In Papua, cultivating sugarcane offered an enormous benefit to the people who lived there.
The obvious use of sugarcane is as a food. Its sweet, calorie dense juice continues to make people salivate (just think of the difference between soda sweetened with real sugar vs. corn syrup). But Papuans also used the strong sugarcane stalk as construction material, similar to bamboo. So it’s no surprise sugarcane from Papua began to be traded, first to what is now Indonesia/Malaysia, then to China, and finally India. As humans do, these cultures experimented with sugarcane. Their creative explorations developed the foundation for ways we use sugarcane today.
Malay Archipelago, India, & China
India began refining sugar on a large enough scale that it was documented. In fact, the word sugar has sanskrit roots. Refining sugarcane consists of heating the pressed juices to encourage crystallization that results in refined sugar and molasses. Refined sugar (white granulated sugar or turbinado sugar) was traded west. The first records of sugar in the Middle East and Europe reference sweet salt. It’s fun to imagine encountering refined sugar with the only similar-looking point of reference being salt.
Around the same time, China was experimenting with basic distilling and invented the first documented stills. This technology was adopted by muslim chemists, or “alchemists” (al-kimia being an arabic root word used in academia in many languages). This is obviously a separate blog post, but still super interesting!
Meanwhile, in southeast Asia, between India and China, in what is now Malaysia and Indonesia, an amazing thing happened. It was likely here that the sugar refining process from India and the distilling technology from China took root to make the world’s first sugarcane spirits. Thus it’s in southeast Asia that the broad category of sugarcane spirits are born. These spirits were likely what we now consider Batavia Arrack, a delicious spirit still made today. The term Arrack (or Arack or Arak) appears in many contexts along the silk road. It is still a clear anisette spirit from the Middle East that is the origin of today’s absinthe.
The Colonial Era | Barbados
Similar to how the French took Arak spirits to create absinthe, the rest of the colonial world got their hands on sugar cultivation and refinement methods, as well as the process of fermenting and distilling sugarcane products and decided to experiment. In fact, sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean during the colonial era became immensely important toward building the modern, globalized world we see today. And there’s no doubt the wealth and power this crop created for the American Colonies in particular was created at the expense and exploitation of slaves. The one place this all began was the island of Barbados.
Aside from being an epically beautiful 166 sq. mile island just north of Venezuela where grapefruit originated, Barbados is considered the birthplace of rum. The first record of rum being produced and sold is from around 1650. Shortly thereafter, in 1661, English colonials in Barbados wrote and enacted The Slave Code. This egregious document became an instrument throughout the colonial world to socially and legally justify the capture, transport, and enslavement of an estimated 20 million Africans over the course of 400 years. The cultural tragedy of these decisions cannot be overstated, and their ties to rum are not a coincidence. To fully understand why rum is involved, we have to move to New England.
New England and America
Obviously sugarcane does not grow in New England, but the first colonials coming from England were expecting to land in a tropical paradise. The rude awakening of a harsh climate with challenging soil created an intense challenge for these people. What’s more, throughout the 17th century in particular, there was a beer and brandy shortage in England. So the people of New England began adopting the much cheaper spirit from the Caribbean— rum. Seeing the potential of this spirit as a money-making commodity, New Englanders began purchasing molasses from the Caribbean, and distilling their own rum. By the mid-1700s there were over 100 distilleries producing rum in New England, and rum accounted for 80% of exports.
This demand for more sugarcane products fueled the creation of sugarcane plantations throughout the Caribbean. These plantations repurposed cultivation models from the Arab Slave Trade, where wealthy European aristocrats, like Christopher Columbs’ wife, owned sugar plantations in such places as the Canary Islands. Planting, harvesting, and refining sugarcane on such a large scale that built wealth for a select few required the use of slave labor. Through the grueling work of these slaves that molasses and sugar were sold to the New England colonies, where rum was made and sold for generous profits. The economic power New England was gaining from the use of sugarcane was intimidating to the King of England, and led to a series of unpopular restrictions for the colonies, including the Sugar Act of 1764. The phrase “taxation without representation” was as much, or maybe even moreso, about rum as it was about tea.
What is to be done?
Needless to say, The American Revolution changed the world. But what many don’t realize is the importance of rum and its direct ties to slavery that made it possible for Americans to succeed in building a nation. Today, many rum distilleries are starting to grapple with this history. But largely, the public does not understand or appreciate this cultural history. But not you, because you read this entire post! Kudos!
So next time you sip on some rum or enjoy a cocktail, take the time to reflect on our collective place in the world and how we got here. Use the experience to fuel a save-the-world conversation with friends. Remember the history that made the moment possible. The impressive innovation and creativity required to cultivate, refine, ferment, and distill sugarcane. The power of human ingenuity. The tragic subjugation and exploitation of people's that set a global foundation for wealth inequality. And the fact that you were born and hold the privilege of consciousness, and the joy of disturbing said consciousness with a few too many rum cocktails!
